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THE SEA EOVERS 






A GLOUCESTER FISHERMAN 



THE 

SEA ROVERS 



RUFUS ROCKWELL WILSON 

Author of "Rambles in Colonial Byways," etc. 



ILLUSTRATED BY MAY FRATZ 



NEW YORK 

B. W. DODGE AND COMPANY 

1906 






LIBRARY of CO M.-.4SESSJ 

Two Cecir 5 s ceived j 

D£f 24 906 

* CopyfhfiU Entry 
CLASS A AXC„ NOi 
COPY B. 

Ti'Ti-nr — r * i 'i i 'rrr — iTJOTJ 






Copyright, 1906 

BY 

B. W. DODGE AND COMPANY 

New York 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

I. Gloxjcestek Fisher Folk , 1 

II. An Ocean Flyer's Crew 28 

III. The Man-of-Warsman 61 

IV. Soldiers Who Serve Afloat .... 94 
V. The Police of the Coast 121 

VI. The Ocean Pilot 149 

VII. The Deep-Sea Diver 169 

VIII. The Lighthouse Keeper 198 

IX. Life-Saving Along Shore 231 

X. Whalers of the Arctic Sea .... 254 



ILLUSTEATIONS. 



FACING 
PAGE 



A Gloucester Fisherman — Frontispiece 

The Captain of an Ocean Liner 42 

A Man-of-Warsman 76 

An Officer in the Revenue Cutter Ser- 
vice 

Pilot Signaling a Vessel 156 

A Diver Ready to Descend 180 

A Lighthouse Keeper 214 

A Life- Saver on Patrol 242 



128 



THE SEA ROVERS 

CHAPTER I 

GLOUCESTER FISHER FOLK 

A glorious vision is Gloucester harbor, 
whether seen under the radiant sun of a clear 
June morning or through the haze and smoke 
of a mellow October afternoon. Gloucester 
town lies on a range of hills around the har- 
bor, and fortunate is the man who chances to 
see it as the background to a stirring marine 
picture when on a still summer's morning a 
fleet of two or three hundred schooners is put- 
ting to sea after a storm, spreading their 
white duck against the blue sky and fanning 
gently hither and thither, singly or in pic- 
turesque groups, before the catspaws or idly 
drifting to eastward, stretching in a long line 
beyond Thatcher's Island and catching the 



2 THE SEA EOVERS 

fresh breeze that darkens the distant offing. 
Here the green of their graceful hulls, the 
gilt scrollwork on the bows and thei canvas 
on the tall, tapering masts are reflected as in 
a mirror on the calm surface ; or beyond they 
are seen heeling over to the first breath of the 
incoming sea wind that ruffles the glinting 
steel of the sheeny swell, forming as a whole 
a scene of inexhaustible variety and beauty. 
Such a spectacle gives the stranger fitting 
introduction to Gloucester, for from earliest 
times the men of the gray old town have been 
followers of the sea. It was three years after 
the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth that 
the first Englishman settled on Cape Ann, at 
the place now called Gloucester, which took 
its name from the old English cathedral city 
whence many of its settlers had come. 
America's Gloucester doubtless seems young 
to the mother town, which is of British origin 
and was built before the Romans crossed from 
Gaul; but, despite the great cathedral in the 
English town and the importance in the cleri- 
cal world of the prelates and church dignita- 



GLOUCESTEE FISHER FOLK 3 

ries wlio found livings there, the Yankee town 
was for many years a place of more conse- 
quence in the world of trade and profit than 
the English Gloucester has ever been. 

Founded as a rendezvous where fishermen 
could cure their fish and fit out for their trips, 
in the old days Gloucester in Massachusetts 
had fishing and whaling fleets, and her boats 
not only went out on the Banks in search of 
cod, but to the far limits of the North and 
South Seas they sailed to bring back rich car- 
goes of whale oil. Her fleets ventured into 
every sea from which profit could be brought, 
and boys born in the town or its neighbors 
three or four generations agone all looked 
forward to a half dozen cruises as a matter 
of course, just as the modern boy knows that 
he must go to school and learn to read and 
write. It was a rough school to which the 
youth of Gloucester and Cape Ann went, but 
it was a good one. They learned there to be 
brave and manly, and seafaring broadened 
the minds of men who had they stayed at 



4 THE SEA BOVERS 

home would have been sadly provincial and 
narrow. 

Thus the history of Gloucester centers in 
the fisheries. The yarns most often told at 
her firesides are of hairbreadth escapes at 
sea ; her legends and romances have a flavor 
of the salt waves about them; her rugged 
granite shore is marked with the scenes of 
memorable shipwrecks and storms; her town 
records are the records of fleets that have 
gone down on the Banks, of pinks and 
schooners that have foundered on the Georges, 
of heroes that have toiled for their families 
and fought the grim battle of life with the 
fogs, the lightning and the swooping billows 
of the sou'wester, and with the ice, the hail 
and the short, savage cross seas and terrible 
blast of the raging nor 'wester, while their 
children have cried for their absent fathers 
and their wives have lain awake through long, 
dreary nights, burning the light in the window 
and straining their eyes to see through the 
gloom of the storm the long expected vessel 



GLOUCESTER FISHER FOLK 5 

and the beloved forms that perhaps have al- 
ready gone down at sea. 

The discovery of petroleum struck the 
Gloucester whaling industry a blow from 
which it has never recovered, but the town's 
fisheries are still in thriving condition. Four 
hundred fishing vessels of sufficient conse- 
quence to be registered hail at the present 
time from Gloucester. The number of men 
employed in these vessels, the majority of 
which are as speedy and well built as pleasure 
yachts, is upward of 5,000. Many of the fish- 
ermen are from the British provinces and 
make excellent skippers and sailors, while 
Sweden, Norway and the Azore Islands con- 
tribute a large number, who are, as a rule, 
orderly, capable and industrious. They fare 
well as compared with the fishermen of other 
days or with men now before the mast of the 
merchant service, and fresh pies, biscuits, 
fowls, eggs and like delicacies are frequently 
seen in the forecastle of a Gloucester banker. 

The mackerel fishermen bound for the 
Georges Banks usually leave Gloucester as 



6 THE SEA EOVEES 

early as the last of February, but those bound 
to other waters with the cod, halibut and had- 
dock fishermen do not start until later. The 
cod are caught chiefly on the Grand Banks of 
Newfoundland, where the watch lights of the 
Gloucester men twinkle in the midnight gloom 
in company with those of the French fishers 
of Miquelon and St. Pierre. Mackerel are 
also caught in the Bay of St. Lawrence, off 
Cape North, Sidney and the Magdalen Isl- 
ands, where the fishermen often linger until 
late in the fall and are sometimes assailed by 
heavy gales among those inhospitable shores, 
without sea room, on a lee shore and no safe 
port to run to. The haddock and halibut are 
oftener caught on Brown's Bank and within 
the waters of New England. There are sev- 
eral modes of fitting out for the fisheries, but 
the one most often followed is for the owner 
of a vessel to charter her to ten or fifteen 
men on shares, he finding the stores and the 
nets and the men paying for the provisions, 
hooks and lines and for the salt necessary to 
cure their proportion of the fish. 



GLOUCESTER FISHER FOLK 7 

i 

The crew of a banker is usually composed 
of a dozen to eighteen men, including the skip- 
per, or captain, who exercises no direct con- 
trol over the others, but is recognized by them 
as the principal personage on board. The 
average Gloucester fisherman is a splendid 
though rough specimen of an American. You 
may know him by his free-and-easy manner 
and his swinging gait. His costume when at 
work is a red or blue flannel shirt of the thick- 
est material, admirably adapted to absorb and 
exclude the chilling fogs in which he passes so 
much of his time, a heavy tarpaulin or sou'- 
wester, generally his own handiwork, pilot- 
cloth trousers and Heavy cowhide boots com- 
pleting his attire. His face bespeaks a se- 
rious but cheerful and contented spirit, the 
result of a philosophical, half careless de- 
pendence upon luck. 

Generous and fearless in his address, he is 
of simple and economical habits and, like most 
men of large stature, almost peculiar in a 
placid good humor which seldom leaves him. 
Always ready for any fortune, the fisherman 



8 THE SEA ROVERS. 

tries to look upon the bright side of life and 
draw whatever there may be of pleasure from 
his hazardous calling. But among the bank- 
ers are occasional roystering, devil-may-care 
fellows, whose never ending practical jokes 
and offhand manner serve to enliven the little 
vessel and dispel the tedium of the voyage to 
the Banks. 

The Grand Bank extends, north and south 
about six hundred miles and east and west 
some two hundred, lying to the southeast of 
Newfoundland. Its shape cannot be easily 
defined, but the form denoted by the sound- 
ings give it somewhat the resemblance of New 
Holland. To the southward it narrows to a 
point, presenting abrupt edges, which in some 
places drop into almost fathomless water. 
This, as well as the adjacent banks of St. 
Pierre, Bank Querau and the Flemish Cap, 
abound with fish of various kinds, which at 
stated seasons adopt this as a shoaling place 
or grand rendezvous. The most numerous of 
these are the cod, which thrive here so amaz- 
ingly that the unceasing industry of many 



GLOUCESTEE FISHEE FOLK 9 

hundreds of vessels through two centuries has 
in no way diminished their numbers. The 
fishery is not confined to the Banks, but ex- 
tends to the shores and harbors of Newfound- 
land, Nova Scotia, and Cape Breton. The fish 
affect sandy bottom. In winter they retire 
into deep water, but in March and April reap- 
pear and fatten rapidly from the time of their 
arrival on the Banks. 

Fishing begins as soon as the smacks reach 
the Banks. In other years all cod were caught 
by means of handlines, and some fish are still 
taken that way. The most, however, are now 
taken by trawls, which were introduced about 
1860 and were first used by the French. A 
trawl consists of a line some 3,000 feet in 
length, to which are attached short ones about 
a yard long, on each of which is a hook. The 
short lines are placed about six feet apart, so 
that each trawl has about 500 hooks. Attached 
to each end of the line by a rope is a buoy, 
sometimes only an empty powder keg or a 
mackerel kit. In the head of the buoy is a 
pole three feet long, upon which is a small 



10 THE SEA BOVEBS 

flag to attract the attention of the owner when 
in search of it. To each end of the line is 
fastened a small anchor. 

The hooks are baited with squid, herring 
or other small fish, if they can be secured. To 
bait a trawl requires from an hour and a half 
to two hours. "When it is ready it is placed in 
a tub made of a half barrel. The long line is 
coiled up in the center and the bait lies next to 
the sides of the tub. One man uses from two 
to six trawls, which are usually visited in a 
dory very early each morning and once or 
twice during the day. When one buoy is 
reached the end of the trawl to which it is 
attached is drawn up, the hooks examined and 
the fish taken off. By means of trawls a man 
may catch more in a single night than by a 
week's hard work with hand lines. 

Each man keeps tally of his fish as he hauls 
them in to the dory by cutting out the tongues 
— the number of tongues giving the account of 
the .fish taken. As soon as the day's catch 
has been taken aboard the schooner the crew 
divide themselves into throaters, headers, 



GLOUCESTER FISHER FOLK 11 

splitters, salters and packers, and the opera- 
tion known as splitting and salting begins. 
The business of the throater is to cut with a 
sharp pointed knife across the throat of the 
fish to the bone and rip open the bowels. He 
then passes it quickly to the header, who with 
a sudden wrench pulls off the head and tears 
out the entrails, passing the fish instantly to 
the splitter. At the same time separating the 
liver, he throws the entrails overboard. The 
splitter with one cut lays the fish open from 
head to tail and with another cut takes out 
the backbone. After separating the sounds, 
which are placed with the tongues and packed 
in barrels as a great delicacy, the backbone 
follows the entrails overboard. Such is the 
amazing quickness of the operations of head- 
ing and splitting that a good workman will 
often decapitate and take out the entrails and 
backbone of six fish in a minute. After the 
catch has been washed off with buckets of 
pure water from the ocean the fish are passed 
to the salters and thence to the packers in the 
hold. The task of the salters is a most im- 



12 THE SEA EOVEKS 

portant one, as the value of the voyage de- 
pends upon their care and judgment. They 
take the fish one by one, spread them, back 
uppermost, in layers, distributing a proper 
quantity of salt between each. Packing in 
bulk, or "kench," as the fishermen term it, is 
intrusted only to the most experienced hands. 

When the day's catch has been cared for in 
the manner just described the watch is set 
and all but two men turn in. These watches 
are regulated in such a manner that every 
man is on deck his part of the night hours. 
Breakfast is served at 3 o'clock in the morn- 
ing, and off the men go again to their trawls. 
If it is foggy dinner is announced by the re- 
port of a ten-pound gun from the schooner. 
It is then about 10 o'clock. After dinner the 
fishers are away again and back about 4, when 
the fish which have been caught are split and 
salted as on the previous day. The only thing 
that relieves the monotony on board a Glou- 
cester fishing smack is stormy weather or the 
coming of Sunday. This day is kept holy. 

Leaving the Grand Banks, let us cross over 



GLOUCESTER FISHER FOLK 13 

to the Georges Banks, where in the months of 
spring and su mm er we shall find Gloucester 
hand-liners, with crews of from eight to ten 
men fishing for mackerel. Every man is at 
the rail, as he fishes from the deck of the ves- 
sel. The tide rnns so strong that nine-pound 
leads are necessary. Attached to each lead 
is a horse, a slingding, or spreader, and a pair 
of large hooks. Sometimes when fishing in 
thirty fathoms of water the great strength of 
the tide forces the men to pay out from sixty 
to ninety fathoms of line before the lead 
touches bottom. In front of each man, driven 
into the rail, is a wooden pin. This is termed 
the soldier, and it has an important duty. 
Every inch of the line is hauled across it. 
Were it not for these rail pins the lines would 
continually be fouled with one another. 

When a smack's crew chance upon a fresh 
school of mackerel their hooks have only to 
touch the water to be seized and swallowed. 
No time is lost in unhooking, but each fisher- 
man hauls as fast as his hands can move 
until the fish appears in sight, when with one 



14 THE SEA EOVERS 

motion he is swung quickly over the rail into 
a barrel or heap and so dexterously that the 
hook disengages itself. When the fish con- 
tinue plentiful the scene is a most exciting 
one. The long, lithe bodies of the fishermen 
eagerly bending over their work, the quick, 
nervous twitching at the line, followed by the 
steady strain, the rapid hand-over-hand haul 
that brings the prize to the surface, the easy 
swing with which he describes a circle in the 
air as the victor slaps him into his barrel and 
the flapping of the captives about deck, min- 
gling with the merry laughter of the excited 
crew, make it a sport to which the efforts of 
the trout angler or the fowler with his double- 
barreled shotgun are but puny and insignifi- 
cant in comparison. 

Time was when the use of the hook and line 
made mackerel catching the very poetry of 
fishing, but in recent years the purse seine 
has come into general use. Mackerel seining, 
however, is an interesting process. A large 
seine is two hundred and fifty fathoms in 
length and about fifteen or twenty fathoms 



GLOUCESTER FISHER FOLK 15 

deep. The school is sighted from the mast- 
head and the direction in which the fish are 
swimming is noted. A boat is manned and 
sets out to head off the school. Two men in 
a dory hold one end of the purse line which 
runs through rings at the bottom of the seine. 
A circle is described by the boat, the seine 
being thrown out at the same time. When 
the boat meets the dory the other end of the 
line is taken into the boat. Then the seines 
are drawn together, forming a large bag. The 
fish are inside and it is necessary to gather as 
much of the net into the boat as possible. The 
fish are then in what is termed the bunt. This 
is the strongest part of the seine. The vessel 
sails up close to the boat, picks up the outside 
corks and the bailing begins, a dip net that 
will hold a barrel being used for this purpose, 
after which the fish are cleaned, salted and 
stowed in the hold. Vessels have been known 
to take 300 barrels in one haul, but the aver- 
age catch nowadays is about twenty-five 
barrels. 
When the mackerel fleet fished with hand 



16 THE SEA ROVERS 

lines the pursuit of this industry was exciting 
in the extreme. Often when massed together 
in great fleets the vessels carried away their 
mainbooms, bowsprits, jibbooms and sails by 
collision in what was really a hand-to-hand 
encounter and when the maneuver of lee-bow- 
ing was the order of the day. A fleet 
of sixty odd sail descry a schooner whose crew 
are heaving and pulling their lines. The 
glistening scales of the fish sparkle in the sun- 
light. The fleet as one vessel turns quickly 
on its heel and there is a neck-and-neck race 
for the school. The first that arrives rounds 
to under the lee of the fortunate craft, the 
crew heaving the toll bait with lavish hands. 
The new arrival now shakes up into the 
wind close under the lee bow of the fish- 
catching vessel. The fish forsake the latter 
and fly at the lines of the newcomer. Now 
comes up the balance of the fleet, and each 
vessel on its arrival performs the same 
maneuver and lee-bows its predecessor. 
Those to windward, forsaken by the fish, push 
their way through their neighbors, fill away 



GLOUCESTER FISHER FOLK 17 

and round to under the bows of those to lee- 
ward. The hoarse bawling of the skippers to 
their crews, the imprecations of those who 
have been run down and left disabled, rend 
the air, while the crews, setting and lowering 
sail and hauling fish, freely exchange with 
leach other language not to be found in any 
current religious work. In these latter days, 
however, seines, as before stated, have taken 
the place of line, and lee-bowing, with its 
attendant excitement and danger, has passed 
to the limbo of forgotten things. 

Fishing smacks bound for the Georges, 
the Western, or Banks of Newfoundland may 
be gone three or four weeks, bringing their 
fish to market on ice, or they may be absent 
from four to six months, dressing and salting 
their fish on board. But, be the voyage long 
or short, it is a joyous and moving spectacle 
to see a schooner come into Gloucester from 
the Banks loaded to the scuppers and packed 
to the beams with codfish. The wharf is lined 
with eager spectators as she glides up to her 
dock with a leading wind. The foresail comes 



18 THE SEA KOVEKS 

in and the mainsail is lowered and handed by 
a crew weatherbeaten and clnmsily limber in 
heavy Cape Cod seaboots, sou 'westers and 
oiljackets. Then the jib downhanl is manned 
and a number of boys, longing for the day 
when they can go to the Banks, catch the 
hawsers and make her fast to the pier fore 
and aft. 

Amidst a storm of questions asked and an- 
swered on both sides, the crew range them- 
selves on board and on shore with one-tined 
pitchforks and proceed to unload with the 
rapidity and regularity of machinery. The 
men in the hold heave the fish on deck, whence 
they are tossed to the wharf. Another turn 
of the pitchfork lands them under the knife, 
their heads and tails come off and they are 
split open in a second and are then salted and 
spread upon flakes to dry. These flakes are 
frames covered with triangular slats and are 
about seven feet wide and raised three feet 
above the ground. At Gloucester they may 
be seen not only upon the wharves, but also 
in all vacant places between the houses and 



GLOUCESTER FISHER FOLK 19 

even in the front dooryards, so that at every 
turn the smell of codfish regales the passerby. 
But there is a sadder, sterner side to the 
life of the Gloucester fishermen than which I 
have been describing. Danger is their con- 
stant, death their familiar, companion, and 
each season has its sorrowful story of storm, 
wreck and disaster. Truth to tell, the perils 
of the trawler are even greater than those of 
the soldier in battle. He is often four or five 
miles from his vessel, when suddenly the 
thick fog closes in upon him and he is lost, 
perhaps to row for days in hopeless search, 
without food, drink or compass. He may die 
of exhaustion or perhaps be picked up at 
length by a passing vessel and taken to some 
distant port. More than thirty lives were lost 
in this way in the summer of 1894. Although 
horns are blown in warning, a whole crew is 
sometimes sunk in an instant by some steamer 
on its way across the ocean. Of all the men 
lost on the Banks during the last twenty years 
more than two-thirds have been out in dories 
attending trawls. 



20 THE SEA ROVERS 

Fierce, too, are the storms which sweep the 
Banks in winter. Then the wind is bitter 
cold, deck and mast and sails are clad in ice, 
and many a crew are never heard of more. 
The Georges in fair weather is not dangerous 
fishing ground, but in a gale it defies both skill 
and strength. The shallow water is churned 
into rolling mountain waves which almost 
sweep the ocean bed. At such times the 125- 
ton fishing vessels, which usually anchor close 
together when fishing, are at the mercy of the 
elements. It is impossible for the anchors to 
get a firm grip and they are sometimes 
dragged for miles. This, in fact, is the great- 
est danger of the business. Not infrequently 
in a heavy gale two or three vessels will drift 
together, their cables become tangled until 
they are unmanageable and in short order ves- 
sels and crew will be engulfed. Some years 
ago thirty schooners, with 150 sailors aboard, 
were lost in this manner in a single gale on 
the Georges. 

Since 1830 nearly 700 fishing vessels sailing 
from Gloucester have been lost and upward 



GLOUCESTER FISHEB FOLK 21 

of 2,700 men have perished. The winter of 
1882 was one long to be remembered in Glou- 
cester, for in less than two months more than 
a hundred fishermen were lost on the Banks. 
One of these was Angus McCloud, than whom 
no braver man ever found a grave at the 
ocean's bottom. Three years before he had 
been on the Banks in the same vessel with his 
brothers, Malcolm and John McCloud. Among 
their shipmates were the McDonalds — Will- 
iam, Donald, John and Neal. Their vessel 
was in the gale of 1879 on the Banks — a gale 
the like of which had rarely before been ex- 
perienced by the fleet. Thrown over on its 
beam ends, the little bark still held to its 
anchor and finally rode out the gale with her 
crew lashed in the rigging. Nearby was an- 
other vessel in the same position, and others 
were being tossed about to windward and to 
leeward. Two poor fellows, washed from one 
of the former, were swept between the two 
vessels that had been knocked down and were 
not one hundred feet from either. The crews 
of these vessels, clinging to the icy rigging, 



22 THE SEA ROVEES 

looked anxiously from one to another to see if 
any one was bold enough to attempt a rescue. 
Angus McCloud cast off the lashings which 
bound him, seized a lanyard, made it fast 
about his waist and stood for a moment poised 
on the shroud lashings. Then he sprang boldly 
into an advancing wave and was carried to- 
ward one of the struggling men. Soon he had 
him by his oilskin coat and soon the crew were 
hauling them in. Angus assisted in the rescue 
of another comrade before the gale was spent 
and his vessel righted. 

Time and again other members of the 
Gloucester fishing fleet have proved them- 
selves worthy comrades of Angus McCloud. 
Several years ago Captain Mark Lane, now 
dead, but then skipper of the schooner Edwin, 
while homeward bound from the Banks dis- 
covered two shipwrecked men on a half-sub- 
merged rock near the Fox Islands, on the 
Maine coast. It was midwinter and a heavy 
gale was blowing, but Captain Lane put his 
wheel hard down, brought his vessel up into 
the wind, hove to under a close-reefed foresail 



GLOUCESTER FISHER FOLK 23 

and told his men they must rescue the sailors 
on the rock. It was a perilous undertaking 
and, as there appeared to be no chance of a 
boat living in the sea then running, the crew 
protested. "Then I'll go myself,' ' said the 
skipper. "Stand by, there, lads, to lower 
away a boat from the davits !" But the crew 
relented when they saw that their captain 
was determined and two stout fellows drove 
a dory over the huge waves to the rock. The 
men were saved, and a certificate of the Hu- 
mane Society of Massachusetts, still treas- 
ured by Captain Lane's family, attests that a 
careful examination into his conduct had 
proved him worthy the recognition of that ad- 
mirable body. 

The experience of the Gloucester fishermen 
in the winter of 1882 was by no means an unu- 
sual one. In the last twenty years over a 
thousand of them have laid their bones on the 
drifting sands of the fishing banks. During 
a hurricane in 1876 on the Banks almost an 
entire fleet was disabled or lost and 200 men 
were drowned. The wind, which had been 



24 THE SEA EOVEES 

blowing a gale from the southeast, veered sud- 
denly to west-northwest. Skipper Collins of 
the schooner Howard, one of the vessels that 
escaped, had a remarkable experience. His 
vessel was "hawsed" up by the current, which 
set strongly to the southward and nearly at 
right angles to the hurricane. He had just 
time to tie up the clew of his riding sail — a 
sort of storm trysail — and lash the bottom 
hoops together, thus making a "bag reef," 
when the hurricane burst with terrific force 
upon the little vessel. A heavy sea boarded 
the schooner and carried off one of the sailors. 
Later on, while standing on the bit head of the 
fife rail and grasping the riding-sail halyards 
ready to let it run if necessary, a ball of light- 
ning burst between the masts and knocked the 
captain insensible to the deck, whence he was 
dragged below by his crew. The lightning 
severely burned his right arm and leg and 
disappeared through his boots. 

During the same storm the schooner Burn- 
ham was struck so suddenly and with such 
violence by a sea as to turn her bottom up 



GLOUCESTER FISHER FOLK 25 

and throw her skipper, James Nickerson, and 
his crew, who were below, upon the ceiling, 
where they lay sprawling for a moment until 
the vessel righted herself. There was one 
man on deck when she was struck, Hector Mc- 
lsaac. He saw the wave coming and leapt into 
the shrouds. With his legs locked in the rat- 
lines he went down into the foaming sea, and 
when the crew came on deck there was Hector 
Mclsaac still clinging to the shrouds. Captain 
Nickerson was subsequently lost in a dory 
from the Bellerophon on the Banks, and Hec- 
tor Mclsaac went down in the Nathaniel Web- 
ster in 1881, together with his brother. 

Everybody who lives in Gloucester is inter- 
ested in the fishing industry, and so it falls 
out that the city's life is about equally made 
up of intervals of joy and sorrow. When 
summer opens the general tone of public feel- 
ing is bright and hopeful, but at the end of 
the season, as the fishers come in, some with 
flags at half-mast, others bearing fateful news, 
the whole town is depressed. All the resi- 
dents show a concern in the sailors who are 



26 THE SEA EOVEKS 

lost and in the welfare of their families. Even 
citizens of fortune who suffer no personal be- 
reavement have been brought closely into 
touch with the poor fishing families through 
repeated tragedies at sea. The scenes in the 
fishing quarters during the late fall and win- 
ter months when news of death is brought 
by almost every returning boat are most pa- 
thetic. Sometimes the news comes with a 
shock, at others wives and children wait for 
weeks in anxiety and never know the details 
of the fate of their loved ones. 

The immediate wants of the families of lost 
sailors are looked after by the Gloucester Re- 
lief Association. Almost everybody in the 
town subscribes to this, rich and poor alike, 
as well as the sailors living along the shore 
and in Nova Scotia, all of whom sail in the 
Gloucester vessels. When there is a disaster 
the nearest relatives of the men lost receive 
a sum proportionate to the amount which the 
subscribers have paid into the association. In 
addition, voluntary subscriptions are made by 
churches and societies in Gloucester and Bos- 



GLOUCESTER FISHER FOLK 27 

ton once a year and distributed at the time of 
the annual memorial service in February. 

This service held in the city hall of Glou- 
cester is unique in its way. Everybody in the 
city takes an interest in it and, with shops 
closed and business suspended, the day is one 
of general mourning. But neither death nor 
its solemn reminders can rob the boy born and 
bred in Gloucester of hunger for the time 
when he, too, may hazard life and fortune on 
the distant fishing grounds ; and gray Mother 
Ocean, kindly and cruel by turns, claims him 
for her own, singing to-day of his hardihood 
and to-morrow — chanting his requiem. 



CHAPTER II 



AIST OCEAN" FLYER 's CREW 



Work on an ocean steamship never ends, for 
no sooner does she reach her moorings in New 
York, Liverpool or Hamburg than prepara- 
tions begin for the next voyage. Her decks 
are holystoned, sprinkled with sand and made 
beautif nlly clean ; the ontside of her hull, from 
deck to water line, is repainted and, if it be 
the end of a ronnd trip or voyage, all the 
exterior paint work receives a new coat, while 
her sanitary and plumbing arrangements, her 
smokestacks, woodwork, spars and rigging 
are all carefully examined and overhauled. 
All this is done by the sailors under the direc- 
tion of the boatswain, who reports each day to 
the officer on duty and receives instruction as 
to the work to be performed. 

28 



AN OCEAN FLYER 'S CREW 29 

Meanwhile an overhauling equally minute 
and thorough is going on in the engineer's 
department, which includes not only the en- 
gines and boilers, but also the electric-lighting 
plant of the ship. The work of this depart- 
ment, however, is so arduous while at sea that 
officers and men receive liberty for the entire 
time the ship remains in port, their places 
being taken by a special shore force which re- 
mains aboard until sailing day. One boiler is 
left untouched to supply power for the en- 
gines that work the electric and refrigerating 
apparatus, the pumps and the machinery used 
in shipping cargo, but all the others as soon 
as they have cooled are entered, examined 
and, if need be, repaired. Each tube, com- 
bustion chamber and furnace receives careful 
attention; cylinders, pistons, crankpins and 
crossheads are gone over one by one, while 
the engines are generally overhauled and all 
the arrangements of the fireroom inspected. 
Nor is the steward's department less busy 
while in port. All the bed and table linen 
used during the voyage, many thousands of 



30 THE SEA EOVERS 

pieces, is collected and sent to the company's 
laundry, after which all the staterooms are 
cleaned and pnt in order and the fresh supply 
of linen made ready for the coming voyage. 

During a steamship 's stay in port the three 
chief divisions, sailing, engineer's and stew- 
ard 's, are under the jurisdiction of shore offi- 
cials whose officers are on the deck. The sail- 
ing department is responsible to the marine 
superintendent, the engineer's to the super- 
intending engineer and the steward's to the 
port steward. Thus the vessel while in port 
has no direct communication with the com- 
pany's office, the dock superintendents acting 
as intermediaries. "When stores are sent to 
the ship they are addressed to the department 
for which they are intended. The port stew- 
ard controls the direct purchasing of pro- 
visions and is supposed to buy in the cheapest 
and best market. The marine superintendent 
and superintending engineer furnish the other 
materials required. Should provisions be 
found unsatisfactory when received the chief 
steward sends them back, and in such action 



AN OCEAN FLYER 'S CREW 31 

is always upheld by the port steward. The 
cargo is in charge of the sailing department 
and is received and stowed under the direc- 
tion of a boss stevedore selected by the dock 
superintendent. 

Even the fleetest ocean steamships carry 
considerable cargoes, and to those unfamiliar 
with it the process of loading a vessel is a 
sight full of interest. On the wharf assorted 
merchandise by the carload is being lifted 
from vans and piled near the ship, and teams 
by the score are adding their quota to the 
immense mass, while on the water side light- 
ers laden with more merchandise are either 
fastened to the vessel's side or anchored close 
at hand waiting to hoist their contents aboard. 
Engines are puffing, ropes are tugging and 
derricks lifting heavy freight of every kind 
to the ship 's deck, the orders of the stevedore 
and the answers of his men mingling with the 
general din. Large vessels have four or five 
holds and much skill is required to properly 
stow the cargo in them, grain, from its com- 
pact and dead weight, being mostly reserved 



/ 
/ 



32 THE SEA ROVERS 

for the center of the vessel, while cured pro- 
visions are packed as far forward and aft as 
possible for their better preservation from 
the heat of the ship's fires. In many vessels 
carrying passengers as well as freight the 
heaviest weight is stowed in the lowest hold; 
this is to steady the ship and is called in the 
argot of the stevedore " stiff ening" the ship. 
It requires about 1,500 tons to "stiffen" an 
ocean steamship of the largest size, and when 
this is done the hold is battened down and 
work begun on the next. 

An important feature in the loading of a 
steamship is her coal. It is customary to take 
as high as 200 tons of a surplus over the ac- 
tual needs of the voyage, and the bunkers of 
the vessel are in charge of a special gang of 
men. Some vessels load their coal over all, 
but a majority receive it through openings at 
the sides. Large V-shaped pockets, running 
direct to the bunkers, are let down on each 
side and around them are built stagings on 
which a couple of men are stationed to dump 
the coal from huge buckets hoisted by engines 



AN OCEAN FLYER 'S CREW 33 

from lighters. On the wharf side the coal is 
wheeled in barrows up a shelving gangway 
and turned into the bunkers direct. To load a 
great vessel requires the services for several 
days of 125 men, including a boss stevedore 
and a couple of foremen and with all the 
appliances of steam and gearing to assist 
their operations. The force is divided into 
half a dozen or more gangs, each having its 
head, who is in communication with the boss 
stevedore. As the work is intermittent the 
men are paid by the hour, and there is a 
keeper who does nothing else but take down 
the time each one is employed. Certain gangs 
of longshoremen stick to certain lines, and 
many of them have worked nearly all their 
lives for the same company. When the load- 
ing of a ship is completed a detailed inspec- 
tion of cargo is made by one of the officers, 
and for this reason the boss stevedore is al- 
ways careful to prevent slovenly methods on 
the part of his men, being aware that in the 
end he will be the one held responsible for 
haste or error. 



34 THE SEA ROVERS 

While the cargo is being received and 
loaded stores for the coming voyage are also 
being taken aboard. The supplies for the 
physical comfort and necessities of 1,500 per- 
sons on a ship can be measured only by the 
ton, 30,000 pounds of beef, for instance, being 
often used on a single voyage. About 150 
tons of water are required for cooking and 
drinking, an additional fifty tons being made 
daily on board by the evaporators from sea 
water and used for cleaning purposes. When 
it comes to food and drink the ingenuity of the 
port and ship's stewards is put fairly to the 
test. A day or two before the ship leaves 
port the number of passengers who will prob- 
ably sail on it is figured up and the ship's 
steward makes up and hands to the port stew- 
ard a tabulated list of the supplies needed for 
the trip, nearly 1,000 articles being named in 
the requisition, which includes food and drink 
in every conceivable form. The port steward 
sends his orders to the firms that supply the 
line and arranges for the delivery of the 
goods at certain hours, care being taken that 



AN OCEAN FLYER 'S CREW 35 

they shall arrive when the pier is not blocked 
with wagons unloading freight. The meats 
come at a certain hour, the groceries at an- 
other and the spices and so on at another, 
everything being weighed on scales at the pier 
and counted as it goes on board. 

The variety of the food supplies required 
for one of these huge floating hotels is bewil- 
dering. For example, no less than fifteen 
kinds of cheese are used, while fish in fully a 
hundred grades and forms is stowed away. 
In the list of fruits, fresh, dried and canned, 
there are at least 125 varieties, and the same 
is true of vegetables. The list of supplies, 
moreover, must be scanned by the steward 
again and again, for it will not do to overlook 
a single article that may be needed. Here is 
part of what is required in the way of sup- 
plies when a ship like the Carmania is 
crowded: 25,000 to 30,000 pounds of beef, 
5,000 pounds of mutton, 2,600 pounds of veal, 
pork and corned beef; 8,000 pounds of sau- 
sage, tripe, calves' head, calves' feet, sweet- 
breads and kidneys; 2,000 pounds of fresh 



36 THE SEA ROVERS 

fish, 10,000 clams and oysters, 250 tins of pre- 
served fruit, 200 tins of jam and marmalade, 
100 large bottles of pickles and sauces, 500 
pounds of coffee, 250 pounds of tea, 250 
pounds of potted fish, 300 fresh lobsters, 3,000 
pounds of moist sugar, 600 pounds of lump 
sugar, 500 quarts of ice cream, 3,000 pounds 
of butter of various grades, 16 tons of 
potatoes, 5 tons of other vegetables, 15,000 
eggs, 1,000 chickens and ducks, and 2,000 
birds of different kinds. Lard by the ton is 
used and often as many as 140 barrels of flour 
are consumed. 

The departure of an ocean liner from port 
is a critical moment for each member of the 
ship's company. All leaves of absence ex- 
pire twenty-four hours before the time for 
sailing, and this precaution makes it certain 
that every man shall be at his post. At 8 
o'clock on the morning of leaving the sea- 
watches are formally set. The lower fires in 
the many-lunged furnaces have been started 
at 10 o 'clock on the previous night ; six hours 
later the top fires are lighted, and at 6 a. m. 



AN OCEAN FLYER 'S CREW 37 

the operation of getting up steam begins, it 
being always necessary to have a full pres- 
sure of steam at least one hour before sailing 
time. As the moment of departure draws 
nearer, an air of suppressed excitement per- 
vades the waiting throng, but there is no con- 
fusion among those charged with the ship's 
conduct and safety. Each officer is at his 
post, and knows his duty. The chief officer 
is stationed on the forward deck in full view 
of the captain on the bridge, where the latter 
with a wave of his hand indicates just what 
he wants done. The senior and junior second 
officers are on the after deck; the extra sec- 
ond with the captain on the bridge, and the 
third and fourth officers at the forward and 
after gangways. 

Meanwhile, as the minutes wax and wane, 
winches chatter noisily ; windlasses clink mu- 
sically; capstans rattle with slacking cables; 
and the shrill chanty songs of the docking 
gang working the warps, answer the cheery 
"Yo-heave-oho" of the sailors on the deck* 
On the bridge with the silent yet impatient 



38 THE SEA EOVEES 

captain lingers a representative of the com- 
pany. By and by, after the final instrnctions 
have been given, this person departs, and as 
he goes over the side the captain, salnting him 
with a wave of the hand, gives a quiet order 
to the first officer. The wheel is shifted, the 
capstan reels noisily, and link by link the 
chain comes home. At last, after a vicious 
tng or two on the cable, the ground is broken, 
and, dripping with cleansing water from the 
hose, the anchor, ring and stock, appears, 
above the foam-streams rippling at the bow. 
When the cat fall is hooked, the ship swings 
easily around the jutting pier, the engines in- 
crease their speed, the ensign dips in answer 
to salutes, and a long blast from the whistle 
claims the right of the channel. Slowly and 
carefully she picks her way through the ship- 
ping that crowds the harbor, drops her pilot 
and heads for the open. The voyage has 
begun. 

With the dropping of the pilot, sea routine 
is promptly taken up, and thereafter on the 
shoulders of the commander rests the preser- 



AN OCEAN FLYER 'S CREW 39 

vation of the ship and the safety of the pas- 
sengers and crew. Every captain of an At- 
lantic liner embodies in his person a shining 
example of the law of the survival of the 
fittest, for there is no short cut to the bridge, 
and none but a master seaman ever reaches 
it. The man who would be captain cannot 
crawl through the cabin window. He must 
fight his way over the bows, and struggle out 
of the ruck and smother of the forecastle, by 
sturdy buffeting and hard knocks, by the per- 
sistent edging of stout shoulders backed by 
a strong heart and an active brain. There 
is probably not a commander of an ocean liner 
who has not been around the world as a com- 
mon sailor, a mate, and finally a master of a 
ship. In fact, it would be difficult if not im- 
possible to get the command of a transatlantic 
ship without having first been the captain of 
a large sailing vessel. Some of the companies 
like the Cunard, have a rule requiring that a 
candidate for a captaincy shall have served 
as a captain somewhere ; and only a few years 
ago a sailor on one of the largest steamships 



40 THE SEA ROVERS 

plying between New York and Liverpool, who 
had climbed from the bottom to the high rank 
of first officer, left the company with which 
he had made his progress solely that he might 
take a place as captain on a smaller and less 
important vessel. If he succeeds in his new 
berth — and his old employers will watch his 
course — it is more than likely that he will be 
called back in a few years and have a com- 
mand given him. 

It is the man who knows his business who 
makes his way to the bridge. No matter how 
gruff or unpopular he may be, or what are 
any of his personal peculiarities, if he under- 
stands his business and knows how to get 
smoothly over the sea, he is pretty sure of 
promotion. A captain, however, does not 
obtain on shipboard all the education which 
makes him capable of commanding a Lucania 
or a Paris. There must be much study of 
books as well. He must know something of 
the art of shipbuilding, of engineering; he 
must be familiar with the science of meteor- 
ology; he must be a master of the moods of 



AN OCEAN FLYER 'S CREW 41 

the ocean, the currents and lanes as discov- 
ery has set them forth; he must have the 
mathematics of navigation completely under 
control, and he must have a general knowl- 
edge of the politics and laws of the high seas. 
Most important of all, he must be a man of 
courage and good judgment, for he must gov- 
ern his crew more wisely, shrewdly and 
sternly than a general controls his army, and 
be prepared to withstand the attacks of na- 
ture's forces with as much skill and alertness 
as the leader of an army must show against 
a surrounding enemy. His responsibility 
never ends, not even when he is asleep. Some- 
times the dangers which beset him forbid any 
attempt at sleep, and hour after hour the 
captain must stand upon his high bridge, ex- 
posed to all manner of storms. Often does a 
commander come into port from a perilous 
voyage, during which for two days and nights 
he has not left his bridge, except four or five 
times, and then only for a few minutes at a 
time. 
There was a time when the captain was a 



42 THE SEA EOVERS 

prominent social figure on all ocean steam- 
ships, but this is no longer the case. He may 
be seen at his table in the saloon, when the 
^weather is fine, or may be met on deck occa- 
sionally when he is looking over the ship, but 
at other times he is generally out of sight, ex- 
cept when he may appear on the bridge. The 
chief officer is seen most of all by the passen- 
gers. His principal duty is to look after the 
daily work of the crew, and he is about the 
deck constantly when not inspecting various 
parts of the ship. He takes an observation 
on the bridge with the other officers every day 
at twenty minutes before noon, but with that 
exception is seldom seen there. The other 
officers are in sight only when one looks up 
at the bridge. Indeed, on some of the newer 
ships they sleep and mess in quarters of their 
own on the shade deck, and, thus are 
rarely if ever brought in contact with the 
passengers. 

On all the largest steamships there are be- 
sides a captain and chief officer, three second 
officers, one third and one fourth officer. The 




THE CAPTAIN OF AN OCEAN LINER 



AN OCEAN FLYEE 'S CREW 43 

second officers are known as senior second, 
junior second and extra second, and each, like 
the chief officer, is a duly qualified master, 
capable of taking the ship around the world 
if need be. The general duty of the second 
officer is the navigation of the ship under the 
captain's directions. Each of these officers 
stands a four hours ' watch on the bridge, and 
each during his tour of duty has, as 
the captain's representative, direct charge 
of the ship. The third and fourth officers 
stand a watch of six hours, alternating with 
each other, and, there are, therefore, always 
a second and third or fourth officer on watch 
at the same time. Although in rough weather 
it is work that tests the strength and tries the 
nerves of the strongest man, no officer can 
leave the bridge while on watch, and should 
he violate this rule, he would be dismissed at 
once. In addition to his watch the third offi- 
cer has charge of all the flags and signals by 
night and day, and he also keeps the compass 
book, while the fourth officer, besides his work 



44 THE SEA ROVERS 

on the bridge, has charge of the condition of 
the boats. 

Observations are taken every two hours, as 
on an ocean greyhound, rushing over the 
course between America and Europe at the 
rate of twenty miles an hour, it is of the first 
importance that the ship's position should be 
known at all times. Fog may come down 
at any moment, and observations not to be 
obtainable for several hours. The positions 
of more than one hundred stars are known, 
and by observing any of these the ship's 
whereabouts can be ascertained in a few min- 
utes. Of course, the "road" becomes more 
or less familiar to a man who crosses the 
ocean along the same route year after year, 
yet this familiarity never breeds contempt or 
carelessness, for no man knows all the influ- 
ences that affect the currents of the ocean, 
and while you will find the current in a given 
place the same forty times in succession, on 
the forty-first trip it may be entirely changed. 
Now and then a big storm that has ended four 
or live hours before a liner passes a certain 



AN OCEAN FLYER'S CREW 45 

point may give the surface current a strong 
set in one direction, and there is no means of 
telling when these influences may have been 
at work save by taking the ship 's position at 
frequent intervals. 

The ship *s crew stand watch and watch, and 
in each watch there are three quartermasters 
who have charge of the wheel. Steering in 
the old days before the introduction of steam 
gear, was an arduous and too often perilous 
duty, but to-day, even in the roughest 
weather, a lad of twelve can easily manage 
the wheel, which is merely the purchasing end 
of a mechanical system that opens and shuts 
the valve governing the steam admitted to 
the steering cylinders. First-class ships num- 
ber from twelve to fifteen men in each watch. 
A certain number of these must be able sea- 
men, and none are allowed many idle mo- 
ments. In the middle watches the decks are 
scrubbed; in the morning watches the paint 
work is overhauled and cleaned; and finally, 
when the weather permits, the brass work is 
polished until it is made as radiant as the 



46 THE SEA ROVERS 

midday sun. This scrubbing, burnishing and 
cleansing runs through every department, and 
in no perfunctory way, for each day the 
ship is inspected thoroughly, and upon the 
result hangs the possible promotion of the 
subordinates. 

Once in every twenty-four hours the cap- 
tain receives a written report from the first 
officer, the chief engineer and the chief stew- 
ard, and at eleven o'clock in the forenoon of 
each day, accompanied by the doctor, he in- 
spects all parts of the ship. Let us follow 
him, if he is gracious enough to give permis- 
sion, in this daily visit to the underground 
realm ruled over by the chief engineer and 
steward. In the fleetest of the liners the en- 
gineer force numbers nearly two hundred 
men, divided, as a rule, into three crews, with 
a double allowance of officers for duty. An 
engineer keeps watch in each fire-room, and 
two are stationed on each engine-room plat- 
form. Watches depend upon the weather. 
In most cases, the force, officers and men, 
serve four out of twelve hours, but in foggy 



AN OCEAN FLYEE 'S CREW 47 

or stormy weather officers stand at the throt- 
tles with peremptory orders to do no other 
work. In relieving each other great care is 
taken; those going on the platforms feeling 
the warmth of the bearings, examining the 
condition of the pins and shafting, testing the 
valves, locating the position of the throttle, 
counting the revolutions, and by every tech- 
nical trial satisfying themselves before as- 
suming charge that all is right. 

Distressing at all times is the lot of the 
poor fellows who man the stoke hole. On the 
Furst Bismarck, for instance, there are twen- 
ty-four furnaces, manned by thirty-six 
brawny and half-naked stokers. Suddenly 
from somewhere in the darkness comes three 
shrill calls upon a whistle, and instantly each 
furnace door flies open, and out dart hungry 
tongues of fire. With averted heads and 
steaming bodies, four stokers begin to shovel 
furiously, while two others thrust their slice- 
bars through each door and into the mass of 
fire and flame. Burying their lances deep in 
the coals, they throw their weights full upon 



48 THE SEA EOVEES 

the ends as levers, and lift the whole bank of 
fire several inches. Then they draw ont the 
lances, leaving a black hole through the fire 
into which the draft is sncked with an in- 
creasing roar. Three times they thrust and 
withdraw the lances, pausing after each 
charge to plunge their heads in buckets of 
water, and take deep draughts from bottles of 
red wine. But this cooling respite lasts only 
a moment at best, for their taskmasters watch 
and drive them, and each furnace must do its 
stint. It is fair, however, to say that every- 
thing that can be done to lessen the hardships 
of the stoke-hole has been done by the steam- 
ship companies. The best quality of food is 
given the stokers, and they are allowed double 
rations of wine and kummel four times a day, 
practically all they care to drink. 

The chief engineer of an ocean steamship 
is fairly well paid, and he deserves to be, for 
fidelity and merit lead to the engine-room as 
they do to the bridge, and mastery of the for- 
mer presupposes long years of exacting serv- 
ice in subordinate positions. Indeed, many 



AN OCEAN FLYER'S CREW 49 

of these officers have given their best years 
to one employ, and, like the hardy McAn- 
drews sung by Kipling, deserve much of it in 
every way. Some of the old chiefs are the 
greatest travelers in the world, so far as miles 
may count. One of whom I was told has 
traversed in the service of one company more 
than 900,000 shore miles, a distance four 
times that between the earth and the moon; 
and still higher is the record of another, who 
completed before his retirement 154 round 
trips, making in distance over 1,000,000 stat- 
ute miles. 

The captain in his daily tour scrutinizes 
every nook and corner of the engineer's de- 
partment, and not less scrupulous is his in- 
spection of the domain in which the chief 
steward holds sway. There is good reason 
for this, since, as far as the comfort of the 
passengers is concerned, the chief steward is 
the most important person on board a liner, 
having charge of the staterooms, dining- 
room, storerooms and kitchen. Like the en- 
gine-room the ship's kitchen, located amid- 



50 THE SEA ROVERS 

ships, is an unknown world to most of the 
passengers. There are, as a matter of fact, 
three kitchens, besides a serving-room. The 
soups, fish, meats and vegetables are prepared 
and cooked in one room and the bread and 
pastry in another, while the steerage has a 
kitchen to itself in which all the cooking is 
done by steam. Space being valuable, all 
these rooms are small, and meals for 500 or 
1,000 people are cooked in an apartment no 
larger than the kitchen in a low-priced flat, or 
the pantry in a country house. This makes 
it necessary to keep everything in its place, 
and it amazes one to see how compactly the 
ship 's supplies can be arranged. Nothing is 
left down on shelves or in drawers which may 
be hung on hooks, and even the platters and 
serving dishes are made to hang, there being 
a loophole at one end for this purpose. 

Moreover, what the ship's kitchen loses in 
size is made up in the number of storerooms. 
Far aft is the main storeroom, which, with 
its bins reaching from floor to ceiling, and its 



AN OCEAN FLYER'S CREW 51 

racks overhead, looks like a wholesale grocery 
store. 

Close at hand is the wine locker, a long 
place, lined with narrow shelves, which have 
an upward tilt and are crowded with all sorts 
and kinds of bottled liquors. Down deeper, 
most often where the stern rolls in from the 
counter, is a big compartment, where are 
stored barrels of flour, potatoes, vinegar and 
beer, which when needed are hoisted up under 
the direction of the storekeeper. Pretty well 
forward is the refrigerating plant, a zinc- 
lined chamber, where the choicest sides of 
beef, joints of mutton, chickens and turkeys 
are kept frozen. All the liners, it may be 
noted in passing, carry a butcher, whose duty 
it is to cut the steaks and chops, and to see 
that no good material goes to waste through 
unskillful hacking. 

Adjoining the kitchen is the serving-room 
or pantry, frescoed with silver coffee-pots and 
cream-mugs and lined with shelves filled with 
crockery, while the hook-dotted ceiling glit- 
ters with an hundred other pieces of silver- 



52 THE SEA ROVERS 

ware which swing and scintillate with every 
motion of the ship. The shelves are really 
wooden pockets, faced with strips of wood, 
which keep the dishes from rolling out, and 
stowed away there are cups and plates by the 
hundred. Along the side of the room is a big 
hot press, having on its top all manner of 
indentations for the trenchers, saucepans and 
soup pots which are sent in from the kitchen 
laden with food at mealtime. This is flanked 
by a line of glistening tea and coffee urns, 
while in a convenient corner is a roomy ice- 
box for the cold meats and butter. 

To the kitchen and the pantry the store- 
room is always sending tribute, and they send 
it to the glass-doored dining-room which, with 
its long tables, its dazzling white cloths, and 
its glittering array of silver and glass, looks 
at night like an enchanted realm. Seats at 
table are assigned by the steward or the 
purser, who gives out the seats to those who 
ask for them first. Each seat is numbered 
and the passenger receives a billet with his 
seat number on it when he goes to his first 



AN OCEAN FLYER 'S CREW 53 

meal on board. Formerly there was a strug- 
gle for seats at the captain's table, bnt now 
the wise and wary ones rally about the purser 
and the doctor, for the commander's duties 
seldom permit him to go below save at dinner- 
time. Still, wherever his place at table may 
be fixed, the cabin passenger finds that no op- 
portunity is neglected to serve his comfort 
and lighten the tedium of the voyage. On the 
German lines a band accompanies every ves- 
sel, and plays through the long first-cabin din- 
ner, and again on deck in the evening. All 
German and American holidays are observed 
on these boats, and when Christmas comes to 
the travelers at sea, they find themselves in 
the midst of a Fatherland festival, the chief 
feature of which is a brightly adorned and 
illuminated tree. Nor are the steerage pas- 
sengers forgotten on these occasions, amuse- 
ments, and a special feast being provided for 
them. 

On the boats of the Compagnie Generale 
Transatlantique French festivals and Ameri- 
can holidays are celebrated by concerts, balls, 



54 THE SEA EOVEES 

dinner parties and extra luxuries at the regu- 
lar meals. Entertainment is provided for the 
steerage passengers and a special menu is 
furnished for the festal days. On such occa- 
sions, too, the ships are gayly decorated with 
bunting from stem to stern. The "captain's 
dinner" is another pleasant feature of the 
voyage on a French liner. This takes place 
just before the end of the voyage and is re- 
garded as a token of good will between the 
passengers and the ship's company. Cham- 
pagne is furnished without extra charge at 
this dinner and toasts and speechmaking fol- 
low. On a British liner on Sunday morning 
the captain, in full uniform, supported by his 
officers, reads the Church of England service, 
to which all are invited, while American and 
British holidays are observed in a fitting man- 
ner, the ship being always "dressed" for the 
occasion. The boats of the British lines have 
also a concert for the exploitation of the talent 
on board and a parting dinner given an even- 
ing or two before arrival in port. 

Meantime how do the steerage folk get on 



AN OCEAN FLYEE 'S CREW 55 

when voyaging over the western ocean? Here 
there is another and different story to tell. 
In a ship like the Britannic of the White Star 
line, picture to yourself a barn-like apartment 
some seventy feet long and thirty feet wide, 
but tapering almost to a point at the forward 
end. It is dimly lighted and badly ventilated 
by means of a shaft, through which the main- 
mast enters, and by portholes which are too 
near the water ever to be opened except in 
harbor and are well nigh submerged when the 
vessel lies over or rolls. Lined along the three 
sides of this rude triangle are large skeleton 
frames, each upholding two tiers of coffin-like 
bunks, one above the other, the beds being 
placed side to side in rows of eight and end to 
end two deep. Thus each of these structures 
holds thirty-two bunks, whose sides and bot- 
toms are of rough boards. A narrow passage- 
way runs across ship between the pens, of 
which there are seven in all, making a total of 
224 souls who are crowded into these sordid 
quarters. Picture this to yourself and you 
have before you the men's cabin of the steer- 



56 THE SEA ROVERS 

age of the Britannic. The room being lighted 
at night by gasoline lamps, smoking is forbid- 
den, while all relaxation must be taken on that 
small portion of the lower deck beyond which 
no steerage passenger is allowed to roam, for 
there is no means of amusement or recreation 
in the cabin. 

Still there is a brighter side to the picture. 
All the companies provide ample and whole- 
some fare for their steerage passengers. No 
captain ever fails to include in his daily tour 
a personal and painstaking inspection of this 
department and he is always approachable 
in the event of complaints arising on the part 
of the humblest and poorest traveler. It is 
related of one old-time commander, Captain 
John Mirehouse, that in order to assure him- 
self of the proper quality and preparation of 
the steerage food he invariably had his lunch 
served from the steerage galley at the dinner 
hour ; and he used to declare that his lunches 
were as wholesome and palatable as he could 
desire. Nor is it to be supposed that steerage 
passengers are all immigrants, for, odd as it 



AN OCEAN FLYER 'S CREW 57 

may seem, there are many world wanderers 
who cross and recross in the steerage, who 
travel over great parts of the world and who 
in their class are as independent as the men 
and women lodged in the first cabin. Besides 
these curious characters there are Scottish 
carpenters and other mechanics who come to 
America for a few months at a time to take 
advantage of higher wages and who return 
as they came when the Christmas holidays 
draw nigh. Often a liner leaving New York 
in the early days of December carries more 
than 1,000 passengers in the steerage. 

Whether you travel in the cabin or the 
steerage, the closing days of a voyage are 
always sure to be the shortest and the pleas- 
antest ones. The routine of marine life ceases 
to be a burden, and with the disappearance of 
the last lingering cases of sea sickness life on 
the fleet greyhound of the waters becomes a 
source of joy. Newly found friends and 
glimpses of passing vessels cheer and break 
the solitude, while the tonic of the sea air 
courses like an elixir in the blood. Young 



58 THE SEA EOVERS 

couples flirt demurely in shady corners of the 
deck, whence issue now and again sudden 
bursts of rippling laughter; nor is there lack 
of jollity in the smoking room, whence eddy 
the flotsam and jetsam of the ship and cards 
rule the hour from early forenoon until the 
lights are turned out at night. If it be sum- 
mer and the passage a westward one you may 
count, as a rule, upon skirting the Grand 
Banks without mishap and upon rounding the 
Georges in the same lucky manner. Then, 
after long and eager waiting, comes the happy 
hour when there is a cry of "Sail, ho," and a 
few minutes later a yawl emerges from the 
gathering darkness and a bluff, black-garbed 
pilot climbs to the ship's deck, bringing news 
from the outer world and the glad assurance 
that land and home are just beyond the hori- 
zon line. 

Soon comes the welcome cry, ' ' There she is, 
Fire Island light, right over the starboard 
bow." The watcher in the lighthouse tele- 
graphs the steamer's arrival to the quaran- 
tine station and the ship news office, and 



AN OCEAN FLYER 'S CEE W 59 

long before noon the vessel readies quaran- 
tine. Here the health officer boards her, and 
if it is found that she has no case of conta- 
gious disease on board she is permitted to 
proceed to her dock, which she reaches in 
about one hour and a half, including the time 
of examination. Meanwhile she has been met 
down the bay by a revenue cutter having a 
squad of customs officers on board and dec- 
larations have been made and signed by the 
cabin passengers as to the contents of their 
trunks, which are searched as soon as the 
vessel arrives at her dock. Here, also, an 
officer of the Immigration Bureau takes 
charge of the steerage passengers and has 
folk and baggage conveyed to the Barge 
Office for the examination which will impel 
their return to the place from which they 
came or end in the granting of permission for 
them to enter the land of mystery and 
promise. 

Within the hour in which the liner reaches 
her moorings on the New York or Jersey 
shore the last passenger has taken his depar- 



60 THE SEA EOVEES 

ture, shore leave has been granted to the ma- 
jority of the ship's company and waiting 
hands have promptly taken in hand the task 
of making* ready for the leviathan's next 
ocean pilgrimage, since, as I said at the out- 
set, one voyage is no sooner ended than prep- 
arations for another are begun. 



CHAPTER III 



THE MAN-OF-WAKSMAN 



It is by no means an easy task to secure ad- 
mission to the United States Navy, and of 
those who present themselves for enlistment 
in ordinary times abont one man in a dozen 
is accepted. Landsmen furnish a great ma- 
jority of recruits, and of these more come, it 
is said, from New York than any other city in 
the country. The candidate who presents 
himself on board of any one of the receiving 
ships constantly in commission for enlistment 
purposes is first put through a rigid oral ex- 
amination designed to prove his mental and 
moral makeup. If he passes this test the re- 
cruiting officer turns him over to the examin- 
ing surgeon, by whom the discovery of the 
slightest physical defect is counted as suffi- 

61 



62 THE SEA KOVEBS 

cient ground for the candidate's rejection. If, 
however, he passes the doctor he is vaccinated 
and sent back to the recruiting officer, who 
swears him in for a three years ' cruise, after 
which he is turned over to the paymaster's 
clerk to draw his uniforms and small stores. 

A month of preliminary training on the re- 
ceiving ship follows. Here he is put through 
the well-known " setting-up drill," which is 
designed to give the full use of the muscles 
and feet and to develop the agility and endur- 
ance necessary to the performance of ship 
duty. This exercise is of daily occurrence 
while the recruit is in the early stage of his 
enlistment and is practiced frequently during 
the entire period of service, being part of the 
drill of every ship 's company. The recruit is 
also given practice in what is known as "the 
boat drill," and when opportunity offers in 
the manning and manipulation of the guns. 

At the end of his first month comes the 
newly enlisted man's assignment to a vessel 
in active cruising service. Here, with a goodly 
batch of other landsmen, he is taken in hand 



THE MAN-OF-WABSMAN 63 

by the master-at-arms, gets a ship's number 
and a mess kit, learns where to stow his cloth- 
ing and hammock, and is part and parcel of 
the life on a man-of-war. 

The recruit's first days on shipboard are 
apt to put his nerves and temper to the test, 
for the old-timers among the ship 's company 
are sure to let pass no opportunity to bedevil 
and confound him. Calking mat is the name 
given to the piece of matting which the blue- 
jacket spreads upon the deck when he wants 
to take a nap and which protects his uniform 
from being soiled. He buys it himself, but 
never a landsman went aboard his first ship 
that he was not told to go to the master-at- 
arms for a calking mat. Now, the average 
master-at-arms on a man-of-war is a man 
who, having been in the navy for half a life^ 
time, has ceased to find amusement in the 
calking-mat request preferred to him by sev- 
eral thousand recruits, and as a consequence 
the reception the newcomer gets when he 
approaches Jimmy Legs on this matter is 
liable to be a badly mixed affair of boots and 



64 THE SEA EOVERS 

language. Again, recruits are often sent to 
the officer of the deck to prefer absurd ques- 
tions or questions on matters in which they 
have no concern. When one of these recruits 
walks up to the officer of the deck and, after 
a bow, innocently asks when the ship is to sail 
he is in for a speedy if disgraceful scramble 
forward. Or on his first day aboard a man-of- 
war the recruit is often told that in order to 
go below to his locker he must first get per- 
mission from the officer of the deck. ' ' To my 
locker below, sir, may I go, sir?" he is told to 
say when he goes to the mast to ask for the 
desired permission. If the officer of the deck 
happens to be in good humor he will turn 
away to preserve his dignity by not smiling, 
but if his temper is on edge the recruit is in 
for a lesson in directness of language that 
will make him wish he had not thrown over his 
job ashore. Trials of this sort, however, soon 
have an ending. The average recruit quickly 
masters the marine ropes, and instances are 
not uncommon of clever landsmen who have 
finished their first three years ' cruise as chief 



THE MAN-OF-WARSMAN 65 

petty officers, drawing from $50 to $75 a 
month. 

Besides the receiving ships regularly de- 
voted to the enlistment of naval recruits on 
the Atlantic and Pacific coasts American war- 
ships are constantly shipping men, both in 
home and foreign ports, to fill gaps in crews. 
In this way many peculiar geniuses, men of 
really remarkable attainments along certain 
lines, gain admission into the navy as enlisted 
men. At Bangkok a few years ago an Ameri- 
can man-of-war shipped a German as a mess- 
room attendant. He was a fine-looking man 
of thirty and had little to say to his mates. 
One morning at sea soon after the German's 
enlistment a knot of officers gathered in the 
wardroom were discussing a difficult point in 
ordnance. The messroom attendant, who 
was watching out for the officers' needs, ven- 
tured to enter into the discussion. He did it, 
however, so quietly and respectfully and at 
once showed such perfect knowledge of the 
topic in hand that the officers found them- 
selves listening to him with much interest. In 



66 THE SEA KOVERS 

five minutes the German had shown that there 
was no detail of the armanent of the world's 
navies with which he was not familiar and 
that he was a past master in all matters per- 
taining to modern great guns. His proficiency 
in this respect being reported to the command- 
ing officer, he was made a chief gunner 's mate 
and was about to be a gunner when his time 
expired and he went to Germany, where he 
was employed by the Krupps as an ordnance 
expert. It came out that he had spent his life 
in the ordnance branch of the Krupp works 
and that he had been compelled to leave Ger- 
many suddenly on account of some trouble 
in which he had become involved. He had 
gone to Siam in the hope of getting an oppor- 
tunity to rearrange the Siamese fortifications. 
Failing in this, and discouraged and penni- 
less, he had shipped in the American navy. 

"Once a sailor alwavs a sailor' ' is not 
strictly true of men-of-warsmen of the Ameri- 
can navy. Less than one-half of the men who 
complete one enlistment ship for a second 
three years' cruise, but a majority of the men 



THE MAN-OF-WARSMAN 67 

who put in two cruises settle down to a life- 
long continuance in the service, for when a 
bluejacket has passed one or two summers in 
the latitude of the North Cape and a couple of 
winters among the West Indies or in the 
South Pacific he is pretty sure to acquire a 
dislike for the climate of the United States 
that keeps him in the navy for good and all. 
Moreover, after a few years in the navy a 
bluejacket becomes possessed of the idea that 
he is really doing nothing aboard ship to earn 
his $16 a month and board. 

Herein, however, he unconsciously proves 
himself a humorist, for the routine of life on 
a man-of-war is in reality a hard and labor- 
ious one. Reveille is sounded at daybreak, 
and the men who have not been on watch dur- 
ing the night turn out of their hammocks, lash 
and stow their bedding and get early coffee 
and biscuit. Then clothes are scrubbed, decks 
washed down and dried and the ship's side 
and boats cleaned, so that when the breakfast 
call is sounded at 7:30 o'clock most of her 
morning toilet has been made. 



68 THE SEA ROVERS 

Breakfast over, tEe men light their pipes 
and loll at ease until the uniform of the day 
is announced, whereupon they array them- 
selves in the garb prescribed and when the 
"turn-to" call has been sounded proceed to 
their several tasks. The days and even the 
hours and minutes of men-of-warsmen are al- 
lotted to special duties, Every day they are 
put through drill, sometimes with great guns, 
sometimes with cutlasses, sometimes with 
small boats and in many other ways. More- 
over, arms and accoutrements have to be 
cleaned daily, the ordnance freed from rust and 
stain and the brasswork kept polished. While 
this is going on the bugle sounds the sick call 
and all who feel the need of the surgeon's care 
repair to the sick bay, after which a list of 
those unfit for service is furnished the officer 
of the deck, so that their duties can be at- 
tended to by their mates. 

The morning is still young when the order 
comes, "Clear up the decks for inspection." 
Cleaning rags are put away, hands washed, 
an extra hitch given to the trousers, and then 



THE MAN-OF-WARSMAN 69 

the call to quarters is sounded. The men go 
to their stations at the various guns, their 
officers appear and a swift inspection of their 
appearance is made, after which the several 
divisional officers report to the executive 
officer. The last named is armed with a list of 
those who are legitimately absent and checks 
off the absentees reported by the division offi- 
cers. When this task is finished the executive 
reports to the captain, who is standing near 
and who then makes a tour of the ship, in- 
specting battery and crew. Following inspec- 
tion comes some of the drills already referred 
to, dinner at noon, an hour for its discussion 
and smoking, and more drills during the af- 
ternoon, ending with the setting-up drill just 
before the bugle sounds for supper. 

After that meal the men are at liberty to 
do very much as they please unless a search- 
light or night signal drill happens to be 
scheduled for the evening. With 9 o'clock 
comes taps and the cry of the master-at-arms, 
1 i Turn in your hammocks and keep silence ' ' — 
an order that must be obeyed, for on a man- 



70 THE SEA EOVERS 

of-war the sleep of the crew when the hour 
comes is a sacred thing and not to be dis- 
turbed. 

The modern battleship is first of all a fight- 
ing machine, and that being the chief pur- 
pose for which it is created it is natural that 
the drill of "clearing ship for action' ' is one 
to which particular attention should be given. 
Following it always is a mimic encounter with 
an imaginary foe. Not the slightest detail in 
preparation is ever neglected and only blood 
and shrieks and wounds are lacking to make 
the imaginary battle as realistic as an actual 
one would be. 

As soon as the cry of the boatswain's mate 
echoes from the main deck the bugle sounds 
the "assembly" on the gun and berth decks 
and the officers and men at once hurry to their 
allotted stations. Quiet is insisted upon; 
there is little confusion, and the swirling tide 
set in motion by the boatswain's call has no 
conflicting currents. So far as is possible 
each of the squads into which the ship 's com- 
pany is divided is berthed and messed in that 



THE MAN-OF-WARSMAN 71 

section of the ship in which its duties will lie 
in the hour of battle. Thus on a battleship 
like the Virginia a portion of the first division 
improvises as soon as the call is sounded a 
breastwork for sharpshooters, using ham- 
mocks and awnings. 

Meanwhile others of the same division rig 
collision mats, unship the railing around the 
forecastle, lower anchor davits in cradles and 
carry below and secure levers and tackles. At 
the same time other divisions lower and un- 
ship awning stanchions and railing in wake of 
the guns, close water-tight compartments, rig 
in and secure danger booms, unship ladders 
and supply fresh water for drinking purposes. 
Magazines are opened and lanterns trimmed, 
battle bucklers are fitted to air ports, and 
those detailed to attend speaking tubes in the 
wake of torpedo tubes go to their stations and 
receive and respond to the signals sent out 
from the central station. Nor is the sur- 
geon's division less busy at this critical hour; 
its members convert the wardroom into a tem- 
porary operating room, remove rugs and cur- 



72 THE SEA ROVERS 

tains and see that the adjoining staterooms 
are made ready for the reception of the 
wounded. There is an enormous amount of 
work to be done before a ship can be got in 
readiness, but in little more than a half hour 
after the order is given the captain hears 
from his executive officer the report, "Ship 
is ready for action, sir." The gun crews, 
stripped to the waist, with their knotty mus- 
cles standing out in high relief, wait for the 
order to begin the fighting ; and when it comes 
the great guns are elevated, depressed, con- 
centrated and put through all the maneuvers 
possible in an actual battle. After this there 
is a moment's rest, and then, last of all, the 
order is given to repel boarders. The enemy 
is alongside and swarming over the bulwarks. 
The men in the tops pour down a murderous 
fire with rifles and Maxim and Gatling guns ; 
headed by their officers, the men on deck, cut- 
lass in one hand and revolver in the other, 
slash and hew, shoot and hack until the enemy 
turn tail and flee as fast as their imaginary 
legs can carry them. The ship is saved. 



THE MAN-OF-WABSMAN 73 

When at sea half of the crew of a man-of- 
war is always on duty and the other half tak- 
ing a rest. The latter court their ease in many 
ways. Some stretch out on the hard deck and 
take a nap, others play checkers, spin yarns, 
write letters or read novels. Some are lost 
in reverie; all of them look careless and 
happy and nearly all of them smoke or chew 
tobacco. Music often claims a group of them 
at any hour of the day, and at night dancing 
is sometimes indulged in, always with wild de- 
light. A stranger who strays into the fore- 
castle observes that a few of its inhabitants 
wear double-breasted coats and linen collars. 
These are the men of rank before the mast 
and they are known as petty officers. The 
master-at-arms, the machinists and the yeo- 
man are among the chief of these, and other 
petty officers are the boatswain's mates, gun- 
ner's mates and carpenter's mates. They are, 
comparatively speaking, high in rank above 
the rest of the crew and are treated accord- 
ingly by the latter. They have a mess table 
by themselves, presided over by the master- 



74 THE SEA EOVEES 

at-arms and adorned by glassware, crockery 
and napkins. All mess tables on a ship are 
large enough for ten or fifteen men to sit at 
and one of the company is selected by his 
mates to act as caterer. Meals are always 
well-behaved affairs, particularly at the tables 
of the petty officers, for the sense of rank is as 
keen before the mast as it is abaft among the 
commissioned officers. Every officer and man 
on a ship is subordinate or superior to some- 
body else and he cannot forget that his official 
relations even with his bosom companions are 
among the laws of the land. Nor do the exi- 
gencies of confined space interfere with this 
sense of rank. A bluejacket may have to 
dodge around an admiral and give orders 
under his nose, but there is still a gulf between 
them not to be bridged by any man. 

In a visit to the forecastle among all the 
crowd there the youngest sailors and the ap- 
prentice boys are those that attract one the 
most. Their alert, intelligent faces give one 
a pleasant idea of the coming American man- 
of-warsman and attest the efficacy of the 



THE MAN-OF-WABSMAN 75 

method employed to fit them for their future 
career. The present naval apprentice sys- 
tem of the United States has been in force 
since 1875. The candidate for an apprentice- 
ship must be from fourteen to eighteen years 
of age, of robust frame, intelligent, of sound 
and healthy constitution and able to read and 
write. The boy who is found to be qualified 
signs an agreement to serve continuously un- 
til he is twenty-one years of age and is sent to 
the training station at Coaster's Harbor Isl- 
and, near Newport, where is anchored a re- 
ceiving ship capable of comfortably accom- 
modating 500 apprentices. The boys sleep in 
hammocks, assist in keeping the ship clean 
and in various ways are gradually accustomed 
to a nautical life. The daily routine begins 
at 5 :30, when reveille is sounded and all ham- 
mocks are lashed and stowed. After an early 
breakfast the boys wash their clothes, scrub 
decks and bathe, and then for about six hours 
are daily occupied with drills and studies, the 
course of instruction including gunnery, sea- 
manship and English. The hours after sup- 



76 THE SEA ROVERS 

per until 9 o'clock, when all must be in their 
hammocks, and Saturday afternoons are 
given up to recreation. Many kinds of games 
are furnished the boys, and they have also 
free access to a good library. 

Each apprentice on leaving Coaster's Har- 
bor Island spends a year on a training ship 
and is then transferred to a regular man-of- 
war. Here his education is still continued, 
and the end of his enlistment generally finds 
him thoroughly acquainted with a modern 
ship and her armanent and fitted to take the 
billet of a petty officer. Many of the appren- 
tices who re-enlist are sent to the Washington 
Navy Yard for a six months ' course of in- 
struction in gunnery, a limited number being 
afterward detailed to the Naval War College 
at Newport for an equal length of time to be 
given a practical knowledge of electricity and 
torpedoes. They then graduate into the ser- 
vice with the rank and pay of seamen-gunners, 
and that the training they have received war- 
rants its cost is proved by the assertion of 
experts that American gnnners have not their 




A MAN-OF-WARSMAN 



THE MAN-OF-WARSMAN 77 

superior in any navy of the world. The mak- 
ing of an American man-of-warsman is a pro- 
cess worth while. 

In peaceful times one day is very much like 
another on an American man-of-war, but 
there are four days of special importance in 
the calendar of the bluejacket serving thereon. 
These are general muster day, general inspec- 
tion day and Thanksgiving and Christmas 
days. The first-named marks the observance 
of a ceremony of great importance to the par- 
ticipants — the reading of the articles of war 
or rules which have been framed for the gov- 
ernment of the navy. Unlike other musters 
and routine drills which take place day after 
day with the utmost regularity, this function 
is observed not oftener than once a month. 
On most ships the first Sunday of each month 
is reserved for this purpose, but it frequently 
happens that two or three months elapse be- 
tween one general muster and the next. 
Shortly before 10 o'clock in the morning of 
the day selected the chief boatswain's mate 
passes the order through the ship of "All 



78 THE SEA BOVERS 

hands to muster. " At once every soul on the 
vessel except the sick and, if at sea, half a 
dozen others who cannot be spared from the 
wheel and engine room repairs aft to the 
quarterdeck, where the members of the crew 
range themselves in long ranks on the port 
side of the deck, facing the officers, who stand 
in a line on the starboard side, where they 
are placed according to rank, with the senior 
officer aft. All the officers are in full dress, 
with cocked hat and epaulettes and gold lace 
on coats and trousers, while the men must ap- 
pear in their best, with shoes polished and 
clothes well brushed. 

When the last straggler has taken his place 
the senior lieutenant, raising a white-gloved 
hand to his cocked hat, salutes the captain 
and informs him that all his officers and men 
are ' 'up and aft. ' ' After this, by order of the 
officer of the deck, silence reigns. At a word 
from the commander the senior lieutenant 
begins to read the articles of war, and as he 
does so all heads are uncovered. Simple yet 
eloquent is this expression of the faith in 



THE MAN-OF-WAESMAN 79 

which every naval officer must live. "The 
commanders of all fleets, squadrons, naval 
stations and vessels belonging to the navy," 
runs the wording of the first article, i ' are re- 
quired to show in themselves a good example 
of virtue, honor, patriotism and subordina- 
tion." The second article earnestly recom- 
mends all officers and seamen in the naval 
service diligently to attend on every perform- 
ance of the worship of Almighty God. Fur- 
ther on is another article which informs every 
listener — and every one of the hundreds as- 
sembled is an intent listener — that i ' the pun- 
ishment of death or such other punishment 
as a court-martial may adjudge may be in- 
flicted on any person in the naval service who 
enters into a mutiny or who disobeys the law- 
ful orders of his superior officer or who strikes 
the flag to an enemy or rebel." The same 
penalty awaits any one who in time of war 
deserts or who sleeps upon his watch, or who 
when in battle "displays cowardice, negli- 
gence or disaffection or keeps out of danger to 
which he should expose himself." These of- 



80 THE SEA BOVEKS 

fenses are only a few of the many which all 
wearers of the uniform are enjoined not to 
commit. Some of the others are "profane 
swearing, falsehood, drunkenness, gambling, 
fraud, theft or any other scandalous conduct 
tending to the destruction of good morals ;" 
and it also is forbidden to any one to be guilty 
of cruelty toward any person subject to his 
orders. Other parts of the articles contain 
similar injunctions to all in the navy to main- 
tain the honor of the flag and the integrity of 
their lives. 

As a f ructifier of patriotism the importance 
of this ceremony cannot be easily overesti- 
mated. Lukewarmness has no place in its 
presence, and any one who witnesses it cannot 
fail to be impressed by its disclosure of a faith 
that one feels sure could remove mountains. 
In remote lands it is a rite which borrows 
added seriousness from its foreign surround- 
ings. Its words have often echoed against 
the walls of foreign forts while a Sabbath 
calm has brooded over the latter and robbed 
them of their threatening aspect, and many a 



THE MAN-OF-WABSMAN 81 

time during its performance American sailors 
have been able to look up from their quarter- 
decks to the cottages and fields of some other 
land where a different creed is held and with 
just as strong a faith as their own. No one 
can doubt that while this ceremony lives the 
country is stronger and safer than it would be 
without it. 

The reading of the articles of war consumes 
a scant quarter hour. When it is finished the 
order is given and repeated by the boat- 
swain's mate for all petty officers to muster 
in the starboard gangway. They form in two 
long ranks. At the end nearest the quarter- 
deck stands the master-at-arms and then come 
yeoman, writers, machinists, the apothecary, 
printer, painter, electrician, bandmaster, 
boatswain's mate, gunner's mates, quarter- 
masters, oilers, water tenders and ship's cor- 
porals. The paymaster or his clerk starts to 
muster the crew, calling out each man's full 
name, and the latter answers with his rating. 
"When the petty officers are all mustered they 
are allowed to leave and go forward — always 



82 THE SEA BOVEKS 

being cautioned to keep quiet. Then follows 
a scene that reminds one of the early days of 
the navy — a custom more than a century old 
and borrowed originally from the English. It 
is called "going around the mast." When 
each man's name is called he answers with his 
rating, removes his cap, walks around the 
mast to the starboard side and goes forward. 
This is kept up until all seamen, ordinary sea- 
men, landsmen, coal heavers, firemen and 
bandsmen have passed under the inspection 
of the captain, who stands near the mainmast 
intently watching and forming an opinion of 
each man as he passes before him. When all 
have gone forward the order is given by the 
executive officer to "pipe down," the shrill 
whistles sound and general muster is over. 

General inspection day on a man-of-war 
usually follows close upon the termination of 
a foreign cruise and involves no end of labor 
on the part of officers and crew. In the early 
morning of the day appointed the last touches 
are given to the ship 's bright metal work, the 
last rubs to its great brown guns. The decks 



THE MAN-OF-WAKSMAN 83 

are scrubbed and holystoned, so that the keen 
eye of the executive officer cannot find a spot. 
The bluejackets give a last turn to their ham- 
mocks and a last pat to their kits, for not a 
thing will escape the scrutiny of the board of 
inspection and survey. "When the members 
of that body appear they find waiting for 
them on the main deck the whole crew, spick 
and span, with their kits, long canvas bags 
containing their white and blue clothing done 
up in neat rolls. While a part of the board 
examines these to see if any of the men have 
failed to roll them properly the other mem- 
bers go below to inspect the ship. They visit 
the wardroom, staterooms and forecastle; ex- 
amine the water-tight compartments, the boil- 
ers, engines, bunkers and magazines and the 
wood and metal work, passing over no dark 
corner in gallery or pantry in which may lurk 
dirt or other signs of neglect. 

All this, however, is preliminary to the real 
labors of the day, for when the members of 
the board of inspection have again assembled 
on deck comes the eagerly expected order, 



84 THE SEA EOVERS 

" Clear the ship for action!" Instantly the 
long roll is beaten, the boatswain's whistle 
sounds, and from the bowels of the ship the 
members of the crew come tumbling out, 
swarming over the deck in what seems the 
wildest confusion, but is in reality perfect 
order. Every man has certain duties and 
much drilling has taught him how to perform 
them in the simplest, readiest and easiest 
manner. The whole deck crew is organized 
into divisions and each division has its sep- 
arate and particular work. One division 
lashes fast the big anchors and makes them 
as secure as possible. Another takes care of 
the boats. The spare spars are got out and 
lashed together. The boats are lashed into a 
nest, plugs pulled out so that they will fill with 
water and float with gunwales awash. The 
nest is lashed to the spars that will serve as a 
drag and a buoy to mark their location, and 
then spars and boats are put over the side 
and left to drift as they will. 

While this is going on other divisions are 
at work with the rail and awning stanchions. 



THE MAN-OF-WARSMAN 85 

Every thing comes down. The pegs are 
knocked out of the davit hinges and the big 
iron bars are folded over to the deck. Every- 
thing movable that can be put out of the way 
is stowed in its proper pace swiftly and 
silently. The battle gratings are brought out 
and fitted over the hatches. Any thing that 
might be knocked to pieces by a shell or shot 
to splinters by small fire is carried below, and 
when the work is finished not a superfluous 
bar or beam, not an extra rod, box, implement 
or article of any sort stands on the deck to 
cumber the desperate work of the ship in her 
life and death struggle. 

At the same time the powder magazines are 
opened and the great guns swing around for 
action, shot and shell piled up about them. 
The tops are manned; every small gun is 
ready with its crew to hurl a deluge of mis- 
siles of all shapes and sizes ; rifles, pistols and 
cutlasses are served out to the men, and in 
the space of time it costs to write these lines 
the ship lies at anchor ready to blow an ad- 



86 THE SEA ROVERS 

versary off the face of the water or to be 
blown off herself. 

With the ship cleared for action, there is 
drill at the great guns and execution of the 
order to repel boarders. After this the ship is 
again put in condition and the bugle sounds 
to quarters. The ship's bell has struck the 
alarm for fire. In a trice long lines of hose 
are laid and men hurry around with their ex- 
tinguishers on their backs. The "smother- 
ers," with their hammocks, are ready for 
work, axmen are stationed to cut away wood- 
work and sentinels are posted prepared to 
flood the magazines. There is neither hitch 
nor break in the drill, and at its conclusion 
the men go to their well-earned noonday 
meal. ■ 

After dinner the marines are ordered to 
land and attack a distant fort. The boats are 
lowered away and provisioned for several 
days. Water, beef, beans, cartridges, rifles, 
guns and boxes of tools are stowed away in 
them, and then the men pile into them until 
it seems as if they must sink under their load. 



THE MAN-OF-WABSMAN 87 

Many colored flags flutter from the mainyard 
of the big ship, the launches take the boats in 
tow and off they start. They do not go far, 
however, for soon a signal from the ship 
countermands the order to attack and they re- 
turn and are hauled on board. Then comes a 
drill that is looked upon with regretful pride 
by the old tars who still love the shapely ships 
of the past and cannot overcome their dislike 
for the modern "teakettles;" it is a sail drill. 
The sailors scamper aloft, lay out on the big 
yards and soon the ship, with all sails set, is 
tugging at her anchors. Again the boat- 
swain's whistle sounds. The executive officer, 
trumpet in hand, shouts his orders and the 
yards gradually come down until the ship is 
under close-reefed topsails. Then the sails 
are furled, the yards squared and the men 
wait for the next command. They do not have 
to wait long. A luckless man — imaginary, of 
course — falls overboard. There is another 
hurry and scurry, a life buoy is thrown to the 
drowning man, the cutter is lowered away and 
under the powerful strokes of six oars sweeps 



88 THE SEA EOVERS 

past the ship to the rescue. The man is saved 
and the cutter again hoisted on board. This 
ends the work of the day and all hands are 
piped to supper. Soon the sunset gun booms, 
once more the bugle sounds and the great 
striped flag at the stern comes down. General 
inspection day is over. 

The crew of an American warship celebrate 
Thanksgiving day in the good old-fashioned 
style, which means that the dinner is made 
the chief incident. About this all the interest 
of the holiday gathers, and the feast is en- 
joyed in anticipation, in realization and in 
reminiscence. The expense of the extras 
which supplement the ordinary rations on 
that occasion is borne entirely by the men. 
Ordinarily Jack is a most improvident crea- 
ture who sees no reason for worrying himself 
about what he is to eat to-morrow so long as 
he has enough for to-day, but for Thanksgiv- 
ing and Christmas he makes unusual effort 
to save something to put into the common 
fund for the occasion. His comrades are gen- 
erous, however, and if, as often happens, his 



THE MAN-OF-WAESMAN 89 

pockets are light when the contributions are 
being taken up he is not allowed to miss the 
feast, but may have his share charged up 
against him, to be paid at a more convenient 
season. 

One way in which the men save their money 
is by commuting their rations. The amount 
of food furnished by the government is ex- 
tremely liberal, so that the daily ration pro- 
vided for each sailor is more than he can eat 
under ordinary circumstances. The value of 
a daily ration is put at 30 cents. A common 
practice is for ten men to draw rations for 
only seven. If the mess consists of thirty men 
the value of the commuted rations would thus 
amount to $2.70 a day. This is multiplied by 
the time pay day comes around to a consider- 
able sum and is paid back to the men with 
their wages. Part of it at a time like Thanks- 
giving is devoted to buying the luxuries of the 
dinner. 

The fund kept or raised for this purpose 
has always been known as the "slush fund." 
The term dates back to the early days of the 



90 THE SEA ROVERS 

navy when the men were allowed to save the 
pork drippings and other grease, odd ends of 
rope and all kinds of waste abont the ship and 
sell them to junk dealers for whatever they 
could get. " Slush" was the general name 
given to the waste stuff and the money which 
it brought in was the ' ' slush fund. ' ' This dis- 
position of the refuse is now taken out of the 
mens' hands, but they still continue to call 
their dinner fund by its ancient title. 

A Thanksgiving dinner among the men-of- 
warsmen is a festivity well worth seeing. 
Nothing is done by halves, and the messroom 
decorations and the table furnishings would 
do credit to many a more pretentious assem- 
bly. The messrooms are brightly lighted 
up and their usually bare walls are gayly 
draped with American flags. Instead of 
the every-day enamel cloth the tables are 
covered with spotless white linen. If the ship 
is in port the celebration can be much more 
elaborate, because the men are then able to 
buy, beg or borrow from their friends on 
shore any number of ornamental articles with 



THE MAN-OF-WABSMAN 91 

which to beautify the tables. Vases of flowers 
are artistically arranged about, and a great 
cake with a fanciful superstructure of icing is 
a favorite adornment. Enormous turkeys 
stand watch at each end of the tables at the 
beginning of the feast, but they disappear 
early in the action and their places are taken 
later by relays of mince and pumpkin pies. 
' ' Spuds, ? ' as all sailors call potatoes, are plen- 
tiful, affording ample proof of Jack's tra- 
ditional fondness for this vegetable. Besides 
tea and coffee the only drink is beer. The men 
are allowed to have this not only on special 
occasions, by the way, but at any time when 
they have money to pay for it at the general 
canteen. At dinner time on almost any day 
a few of the men may be seen with open 
bottles of beer before their places at the 
table. 

However, after all is said and done, Christ- 
mas is the rarest day in the naval calendar, 
the celebration in American fashion being 
never neglected on a United States man-of- 
war in port or at sea. The ship is dressed 



92 THE SEA EOVEES 

fore and aft with banners, and in port her 
decks are piled with green stuff. In any of 
the ports in low latitudes, like Callao or Mon- 
tevideo, the mass of palms and ferns dis- 
tributed on Christmas on the spar deck of a 
warship gives the vessel a lovely holiday ap- 
pearance. Bluejackets always hang up their 
socks on Christmas eve. Each takes a new 
pair out of his ditty bag and strings it to the 
foot last of his hammock. Examined in the 
morning, they are commonly found filled with 
fine, dusty coal, lumps of salt-water soap or 
pieces of broken candle, but their owners hang 
them up from year to year, willing to sacrifice 
a pair of socks to the perpetuation of the cus- 
tom. On Christmas day there are all manner 
of games on the spar deck. They are for the 
most part humorous games and are devised 
chiefly for the amusement of the men who 
through misconduct are not permitted to 
spend the day ashore. In the evening there 
is always some good music in the forecastle 
or on the berth deck. On some ships the blue- 
jackets essay the most ambitious airs, and if 



THE MAN-OF-WAESMAN 93 

the bandmaster takes care to put the singers 
of the crew on the right path one of their 
Christmas night concerts is worth going a 
long way to hear. 



CHAPTER IV 

SOLDIERS WHO SERVE AFLOAT 

Soldiers who serve afloat — such are the men 
composing the United States Marine Corps. 
Lack of military qualities in the sailor led to 
the corps' formation in the first days of the 
navy, nor has the passing of the years 
wrought any material change in the character 
of Jack Tar. Formidable in impetuous as- 
saults, he lacks the steadiness and discipline 
necessary in sustained conflicts and in the 
effective use of the rifle, and so with the 
navy's growth the Marine Corps has come to 
constitute one of its most important branches. 
The marines are useful in times of peace 
for police duty in the navy yards and on ship- 
board, but it is when the country is engaged 
in war that they most fully justify their ex- 

94 



SOLDIERS SERVING AFLOAT 95 

istence. Then it is their duty to man the 
rapid-firing guns of our warships, fill vacan- 
cies at the other guns, with their rifles scour 
the decks of the enemy from the tops, the 
poop and the forecastle, cover boarding par- 
ties with their iire and repel boarders with 
fixed bayonets. Should the enemy gain a 
foothold they must gather at the mainmast, 
so as to command the deck. They must make 
the small arms effective and disable the 
enemy's men while the great guns, with which 
the marines have nothing to do save in case of 
emergency, play havoc with his ship. 

However, all naval fighting, as recent 
events have proved, is not done on the decks 
of men-of-war; the surprise of camps or posts 
and the escalade of forts frequently render 
shore operations necessary, and at such times 
picked men are sent with the attacking sail- 
ors, known as pioneers, while the rest of the 
marines form a supporting column to cover 
the retreat and embarkation of the sailors in 
case the undertaking fails. In times of fire 
on shipboard the marines guard the boats' 



96 THE SEA ROVERS 

falls and officers' quarters, prevent panic or 
pillage, compel compliance with orders of offi- 
cers and allow no one to throw overboard any 
property or fitting or abandon the ship until 
duly authorized. Finally a frequent duty of 
the marines abroad is to guard the American 
legations and consulates and the interests of 
American citizens in times of revolution or 
public disorder. 

With duties so varied and exacting ahead 
of him, the making of a marine is a process 
well worth studying. Recruits for the corps 
come from all stations of life. In its ranks 
may be found well-educated men, now and 
then a college graduate among them, who have 
become reduced by misfortune or bibulous 
habits, country boys who have left the farm 
for the city to seek their fortunes and found 
want instead, and men who have lost their 
occupations. All find a refuge in the corps, 
provided they are physically and mentally 
sound, at least five feet six inches in height, 
between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, 
unmarried and of good habits. 



SOLDIERS SERVING AFLOAT 97 

The recruit as an essential part of his train- 
ing must learn how to do well many different 
things. He begins, if a stranger to military 
science, by mastering the drills and manual 
of arms and every evolution possible to a 
body of men on foot, since he must leave the 
ship when there is work to be done and be able 
to move quickly and with precision under the 
most galling fire. The ax, the shovel and the 
pick must also become familiar tools in his 
hands, and that he may fight to the best pos- 
sible advantage he is taught to delve and heap 
until a breastwork is built. After that he 
must accustom himself to the dragging straps 
of a light artillery piece and learn how to 
haul it at a breakneck pace down into the 
ditch he has dug and up on the other side to 
the crown of the intrenchment. Then, as no 
one else comes up to load, aim and fire it for 
him, he must learn all that a field artilleryman 
knows and become skillful in the handling and 
quick and sure in the aim of his howitzer. 

When so much of his apprenticeship has 
been accomplished the marine climbs the 



98 THE SEA EOVEES 

ship's side and makes acquaintance with his 
duties as a marine policeman. The end of the 
first month afloat finds him on guard at every 
post in the ship. He knows each compart- 
ment and gangway ; has been instructed in the 
working of the guns from the heavy turret 
pieces to the six-pounders; has watched the 
magazines and carried messages to the offi- 
cers, and has even gone down to the coal bunk- 
ers, if the ship happens to be coaling in a 
hurry, and taken his turn at passing coal. 

However, he is still only a marine in the 
making, and this fact is brought home to him 
when the ship goes out for target practice 
and, with a bluejacket for a teacher, he learns 
to handle and supply ammunition to the lifts 
in the magazines and to work the lifts them- 
selves, so that when the need comes he can 
take Jack's place and do his work. In the old 
days of sailing ships the marines had to know 
how to splice a rope or furl a sail; nowadays 
he does not need to, but he must learn to make 
his way quickly and nimbly to the fighting 
tops. In doing so he does not have to climb 



SOLDIERS SERVING AFLOAT 99 

to a ratline, one minute almost in the sea and 
the next at the very top of the heavens, but he 
gets painfully dizzy when for the first time he 
feels the ship sinking away from under him 
as he looks down. In the end he masters that 
also and, with practice, is soon able to make 
the little guns in the fighting tops talk as fast 
as the best of the jackies. When he has 
learned to descend from his aerial nest to the 
deck at a dignified pace and to land safely 
upon his feet, his education is practically com- 
pleted, and it has taken him from six months 
to a year to get it. 

Every navy yard in the country has its de- 
tachment of marines, but the barracks at the 
Brooklyn yard are the most popular, and as 
the marines have their choice of stations when 
they return from a cruise, the largest number, 
seldom less than three hundred, are usually 
quartered there. In the part of the yard set 
aside for the marines is a long and narrow 
building of gray brick, with a piazza running 
its entire length, shaded by a line of trees. 
This is the barracks, the living quarters of the 

LOFC. 



100 THE SEA EOVEES 

men. A roomy parade ground stretches out 
in front, and in a group of trees to the left, 
with a garden behind, is the house of the com- 
mandant of marines, while at about the same 
distance to the right are the quarters of the 
other officers, each approached by a stone 
walk canopied and shaded by rows of pear 
trees. 

Visit the Brooklyn barracks of a summer 
morning and you will find the marine there 
in every condition known to the corps and in 
every stage of his development. Out on the 
parade ground is a squad of raw recruits be- 
ing commanded and marched about in the 
effort to trim off their individuality of mo- 
tion, and here comes Private Dougherty, with 
his wheelbarrow and sickle, a bronze-faced 
old man who was retired awhile back because 
his thirty years of service had been com- 
pleted. There is hardly a seaport in the world 
that Dougherty is not familiar with, and he 
will tell you, when in the mood, how he killed 
the Corean general. The Colorado, flagship 
of Eear Admiral Eodgers, steamed up the 



SOLDIERS SERVING AFLOAT 101 

Salee river, in Corea, for the purpose of ef- 
fecting a treaty with the Coreans for the pro- 
tection of shipwrecked American sailors and 
to make surveys and soundings. Her survey 
boats were treacherously fired upon by the 
forts in the river and a fight began. After 
one of the forts had been captured and its 
former occupants driven out, Dougherty 
jumped over the parapet, ran down to where 
the Corean leader was rallying his forces and 
shot him dead. For this service to his coun- 
try Congress voted Dougherty a medal of 
honor. And well he had earned it. 

Ashore or afloat, the daily life of the marine 
is one of hard work and plenty of it. At 6 :30 
in the morning, when in barracks, the men 
must be out of bed and ready fifteen minutes 
later for the ' ' setting-up ' ' drill, which is gym- 
nastic exercise without apparatus. Then the 
mess call is sounded and they file into the 
long messroom, furnished with two tables ex- 
tending the whole length, and breakfast on 
hash, pork and beans or beef stew, according 
to the day in the week, and bread and coffee. 



102 THE SEA ROVERS 

After breakfast the order is given, "To the 
colors ! ' ' and the flag is raised on the pole in 
front of the guardhouse. Then the guards 
take their posts and the routine of the day be- 
gins, reaching a climax at 10:30 o'clock, the 
hour of dress parade, when the marines are 
out in full force. 

Each remaining hour of the day has its al- 
lotted duty, but every marine with a clean 
record has twenty hours out of every 
forty-eight to himself. Many of the marines 
stationed at the Brooklyn yard spend their 
idle hours in the library, a light, airy room on 
the second floor of the barracks, furnished 
with a goodly collection of books and with a 
number of the weekly and monthly maga- 
zines. But as to the books, some of the most 
assiduous readers know the contents of them 
all, and long for more. Nor need the private 
of marines end his life in the ranks unless he 
be so minded. A school is provided for him 
where, if he elects to do so, he may conquer 
fractions and cube root, and in time, after his 
studies have raised him to the grade of ser- 



SOLDIERS SERVING AFLOAT 103 

geant-major in the ranks, should there chance 
to come a war the line is open to him, and once 
his ivory-hilted officer's sword and gold lace 
are worn he has the entree to any officers' 
mess and a place that no man bnt one of his 
own line can fill. That the men in the ranks 
who choose to employ their leisure hours in 
study get their reward was proven in the 
war with Spain, which raised no less than 
thirty sergeant-majors to the dignity of shoul- 
der straps. 

The dominant desire of the ambitious 
young marine is, of course, to get to sea. The 
work there is harder than in the barracks, but 
he does not consider that when he thinks of 
life afloat and the foreign ports to which it 
will take him. During his five years' enlist- 
ment in the corps each capable marine makes 
two sea voyages, extending over a period of 
three years. On shipboard the shore drills 
are continued as far as practicable and to 
them, as already hinted, is added target prac- 
tice. His time off duty the marine spends in 
the forecastle and amidships reading, sleep- 



104 THE SEA BOVEBS 

ing, writing up his diary or twanging the 
strings of his favorite instrument, the guitar. 

The things which chiefly occupy his 
' thoughts, however, are rations and going 
ashore. As to the former, they are consider- 
ably better than he gets at the barracks and 
may be augmented from the bumboats — a 
genuine boon to the luxury-loving marines. 
These bumboats approach the men-of-war at 
every port with articles of utility and food in 
great profusion, and the American marine 
has a worldwide reputation among their pro- 
prietors for his generosity. Ah Sam, of the 
port of Hong Kong, the greatest man in the 
world in his line, whose boats are fifty and 
sixty ton junks, is said to have made his for- 
tune from sales to American men-of-war. At 
any rate, when one enters or leaves the harbor 
he fires a salute of twenty-one guns. 

And it is only fair that the marine should 
have a salute fired on his own account now 
and then, for he is a leading and important 
figure in all the pomp and ceremony of man- 
of-war life. Indeed, it is an interesting and 



SOLDIERS SERVING AFLOAT 105 

pretty sight to watch the ceremonies which 
take place on board ship on the arrival of a 
high official, such as an ambassador, an ad- 
miral, a general or a consnl. As the cutter 
dashes up to the side with spray flying from 
the oars the ship's bugle sounds "Attention." 
The side boys offer the man ropes as the offi- 
cial steps on the gangway and the captain 
receives him as he steps on the quarterdeck. 
As the two walk aft the marine officer, in 
quick, sharp tones, commands, "Present 
arms," and the whole marine guard, drawn 
up in line on the port side of the quarterdeck, 
bring their rifles up in salute, while the bugle 
sounds a flourish and the drum a roll, two for 
an admiral, three for an ambassador and 
four for the President. The marines on a 
ship are collectively called the guard; the 
ceremony is called parading the guard. It 
takes place on the arrival or departure of any 
official of rank. If the official does not visit 
the ship it takes place when his flag passes 
by, and it also takes place when two ships of 
war pass each other. 



106 THE SEA ROVERS 

The landsman visiting an American war- 
ship finds the marine everywhere in evidence. 
At the door of the captain's cabin stands a 
marine, doing duty as an orderly, and no one 
can enter that officer's presence until he has 
first taken in the name. Down below a marine 
guards the storage rooms, and up on the berth 
deck another stands sentry over the torpe- 
does, while still farther along on the same 
deck is the "sentry over the brig," for the 
brig, be it known, is the ship 's prison, where, 
in complete solitude and on a bread and 
water diet, an offender can meditate and see 
the error of his ways. Finally in the crowded 
forecastle the marine keeps order among the 
crew and an occasional eye on that fishing 
boat floating down with the tide, for Jack 
sometimes goes fishing and makes queer 
hauls. "With a coin as a bait, he drops over 
his line, gets a nibble, hauls in a little brown 
bottle — and does not show his catch to the 
sentry. 

The marines, in a word, do the sentry duty 
of the ship, but this does not prevent these sea 



SOLDIERS SERVING AFLOAT 107 

soldiers and the sailors from getting on well 
together. Occasionally, a marine recruit, just 
assigned to a ship, will develop symptoms of 
a disease known as ' ' duty struck, ' ' and blind- 
ly lay the foundation for years of unpop- 
ularity for himself by taking advantage of his 
authority to make it as warm as he can for 
the blue jackets, but such a recruit is quickly 
called to order by the older men of the guard. 
As a rule, the marines and blue jackets are 
on the most friendly terms, and there are few 
liberty parties of blue jackets bound for a 
good time ashore that are not accompanied 
by a favorite marine or two, invited along to 
help the sailormen dispose of their money, 
for, out of his $13 a month, the marine does 
not have a deal for shore use. 

The guard duty performed by marines on 
American ships is of an arduous and exacting 
kind. On some vessels, usually the smaller 
gunboats, the marine guard soldier is on post 
for two hours, and then gets only two hours 
off before buckling on his belt again, month 
in and month out. This sort of thing involves 



108 THE SEA EOVEES 

a breaking up of sleep that tells severely on 
marines serving on small ships, and it is for 
this reason that sea soldiers are so partial to 
flagships, and exhaust all the means in their 
power to be assigned to such large vessels of 
war. However, on every warship, no matter 
what its size, there is at least one first-rate 
billet for the private marine ; that is the mail 
orderly's job. The mail orderly is the mes- 
senger between the ship and the shore, at- 
tends to all sorts of errands for officers and 
men, and is a general buyer of trinkets for all 
hands. A good deal of money passes through 
his' hands, and his commissions are good, not 
to speak of the tips which are given to him 
for performing little diplomatic tasks ashore 
for the men forward. A marine mail orderly 
usually leaves the service at the expiration 
of a cruise with a snug sum tucked away. 

The first sergeant of a marine guard on a 
ship too small to rate one or more marine 
officers fills a responsible and exacting place, 
and is treated with great consideration by the 
officers, since, to all intents and purposes, he 



SOLDIERS SERVING AFLOAT 109 

is an officer himself. He may go ashore when 
he chooses without putting his name down on 
the liberty list, and when he comes back to 
the ship from shore leave, he is not searched 
for liquor, an immunity which he enjoys in 
common only with the ship 's chief master-at- 
arms. The first sergeant is responsible for 
the conduct of his men, and, if they do wrong, 
he is reproved much as if he were an officer. 
For the preservation of discipline, he is re- 
quired to hold himself aloof from the mem- 
bers of his guard as much as possible, and he 
associates and frequently messes with the 
ship's chief petty officers. 

Semper fidelis — always faithful — is the 
legend worn upon the flags, guidons and in- 
signia of the Marine Corps, and, in its hun- 
dred years of existence, it has never been 
false to its motto. It was one of the orderlies 
of the corps, Corporal Anthony, who, when 
the Maine was sinking, and nearly all who 
could do so were hastily leaving, made his 
way toward Captain Sigsbee's cabin, and, on 
meeting him, calmly gave the report the duty 



110 THE SEA ROVERS 

of the occasion required of him. And this 
quiet performance of duty in the face of im- 
pending* death, has had a hundred parallels in 
the history of the Marine Corps. 

During the bombardment of Tripoli, in 
1803, and the desperate hand-to-hand fighting 
which occurred between the vessels on both 
sides, Decatur boarded one of the Tripolitan 
gunboats and engaged the captain in a duel 
with swords. One of the enemy coming up 
from behind was about to cleave Decatur's 
skull with his sword, when a marine inter- 
posed his arm. The arm saved Decatur, but 
it was severed to the skin. In the same bat- 
tle, Lieutenant Trippe, of the Vixen, boarded 
a Tripolitan gunboat and singled out the com- 
mander for a personal combat. A Turk 
aimed a blow at the lieutenant, but before he 
could strike, Sergeant Meredith, of the ma- 
rines, ran him through the body with his 
bayonet. It was also an officer of marines, 
Lieutenant 'Bannon, who, with Midshipman 
Mann, hauled down the Tripolitan ensign, 
after having stormed the principal defense 



SOLDIERS SERVING AFLOAT 111 

of Derne, and planted the flag of the Republic 
on that ancient fortress. 

The marines participated gallantly in the 
War of 1812, and in the expedition against 
Quallah Battoo, a few years later, formed 
the van of the attacking party, and were in 
the thickest of the fight with the Malays. This 
Quallah Battoo expedition furnished a stir- 
ring passage for our naval history that is 
well worth recalling. In February, 1831, the 
American ship Friendship was loading on the 
coast of Sumatra. While the captain, two 
officers and four of the crew were on shore 
the Friendship was attacked by the crew of 
a Malay pepper boat, who, after killing the 
first officer and several of the seamen, suc- 
ceeded in cutting off the ship and plundering 
her of every article of value on board. The 
attack was clearly concerted, and the Achense 
rajah, Chute Dulah, received the spoils, re- 
fusing the restoration even of the ship. 

Time moved with leisure steps in those 
days, but as soon as news of this wanton out- 
rage reached the United States, prompt meas- 



112 THE SEA BOVEBS 

ures were taken to punish its authors. On 
February 5, 1832, the frigate Potomac, com- 
manded by Commodore John Downes, an- 
chored off Quallah Battoo and landed a force 
of 250 men to attack the town. The assault- 
ing party, composed mainly of marines, did 
its work in a thorough and practical manner. 
The town and the four forts defending it were 
captured and destroyed, and several hundred 
Malays killed, including the rajah chiefly con- 
cerned in the plunder of the Friendship and 
the massacre of its crew. The surviving ra- 
jahs begged for peace, and this was finally 
granted by Commodore Downes, but the les- 
son taught at the cannon's mouth is still re- 
membered on the Sumatran coast. 

The Marine Corps participated with bril- 
liant results in the Florida Indian War, and 
in the siege of Vera Cruz and the march to 
the City of Mexico their services were of the 
first order. In fact, General Scott is author- 
ity for the statement that at all times during 
the Mexican War they were placed where the 
hardest work was to be done. At the storm- 



SOLDIERS SERVING AFLOAT 113 

ing of Chapultepec, Major Levi ^Twiggs, of 
the marines, led the assaulting party and 
was killed. This fortress having been cap- 
tured, the marines in General Quitman's di- 
vision moved directly on the City of Mexico, 
and were accorded the honor of first entering 
the palace and hoisting the American flag. 

The marines who accompanied Commodore 
Perry to Japan, in 1852, took an important 
part in that expedition. A force of a hun- 
dred marines was landed, and, together with 
a like number of soldiers and two brass bands, 
marched through Yeddo to the palace of the 
Mikado, creating a most favorable impression 
on the foreign officials. A similar display 
was made by Perry when he returned to 
Japan in 1854, to receive the answer of the 
Japanese Government to his representations 
previously made regarding the advantages of 
foreign trade. 

It was a force of marines who captured 
John Brown at Harper's Ferry, in 1859. 
While the militia of Virginia was assembling 
bv the thousand to attack the little band of 



114 THE SEA EOVERS 

abolitionists, a force of one hundred marines 
was sent from Washington, and a squad of 
eight of them battered down the door of John 
Brown's fort, and captured his party, to the 
chagrin of the hundreds of other military men 
near by who hoped to have a hand in the 
affair. 

Again and again during the Civil "War the 
marines proved themselves brave and stub- 
born fighters. In the encounter between the 
Merrimac and the Cumberland, the marine 
division was under Lieutenant Charles Hey- 
wood, later commander of the corps. The 
first shot from the Merrimac killed nine ma- 
rines, yet the division was so little demoral- 
ized by the loss that it not only continued 
fighting, but actually fired the last shot dis- 
charged from the Cumberland at the Merri- 
mac. For services rendered between 1861 
and 1865, thirty-seven officers and men of the 
Marine Corps received the thanks of Con- 
gress, medals or swords, and twenty-eight 
were brevetted for gallantry. 

In the brush with Corea in 1871, the ma- 



SOLDIERS SERVING AFLOAT 115 

rines, as before stated, were in the assault on 
the Salee forts, and Lieutenant McKee, in 
carrying the works, fell, as his father fell in 
Mexico, at the head of his men, and first in- 
side the stormed works. 

Commander, afterward Admiral, Kimberly 
stated in his report that to the marines be- 
longed the honor of " first landing and last 
leaving the shore. Chosen as the advance 
guard on account of their steadiness and dis- 
cipline, their whole behavior on the march 
and in the assault proved that the confidence 
in them had not been misplaced. ' ' 

The marines again distinguished them- 
selves in 1885, when an insurrection in Pan- 
ama compelled the landing there of a force, 
which stayed until all danger was over, and 
several times, in more recent years, the offi- 
cers and men of the corps have plucked a 
fresh branch for their laurels. When the big 
railroad strike in California was in progress 
in the summer of 1894 the marine guard sta- 
tioned at the Mare Island Navy Yard was 
called out to serve with the regular troops at 



116 THE SEA EOVEKS 

Sacramento, Truckee, Stockton and other 
towns. In alertness, activity and general sol- 
die rliness they showed themselves quite the 
equals of the army troops, and the colonel 
of artillery who commanded the entire bri- 
gade, did not fail to dwell upon this fact in 
his report to the War Department. One of 
the marines at Truckee bent the stock of his 
rifle in clubbing a violent rioter, who after- 
ward was convicted as an accessory in ditch- 
ing a train and causing the deaths of four sol- 
diers. The marine was reproved by his com- 
pany commander, and narrowly escaped a 
court-martial, on the charge of destroying 
government property. "Bullets," said the 
commander, ' ' are cheaper than rifles. ' ' 

The American marine has never been 
known to show the white feather, no matter 
what the odds against him. When, some 
years ago, Antonio Ezeta, the Central Ameri- 
can agitator, was being chased by the govern- 
ment authorities of the Republic of Salvador, 
he took refuge in the residence of the Ameri- 
can consul at La Libertad. The populace 



SOLDIEES SERVING AFLOAT 117 

raged around the consulate, and word was 
sent to the garrison on the outskirts of La 
Libertad of Ezeta 's hiding-place. An Amer- 
ican gunboat was lying in the harbor, and the 
marine guard of twenty men, under command 
of a sergeant, was sent ashore by the com- 
manding officer at the request of the consul, 
to protect the latter 's residence and the ref- 
ugee within it, for Ezeta was a citizen of the 
United States. The marine guard reached 
the consulate at the same moment with a bat- 
talion of 250 Salvadorean soldiers. The ma- 
rines, not a whit dismayed, surrounded the 
consulate, and for eight hours stood off the 
swarthy Salvadoreans. Then, by a xuse, 
Ezeta, in disguise, was slipped to the beach 
and taken to the warship, which carried him 
to San Francisco to stand trial in the United 
States courts for violation of the neutrality 
laws. He would have been torn limb from 
limb by the citizens and soldiers of La Liber- 
tad, had it not been for the score of marines. 
The captain of one of the Salvadorean com- 
panies was an American free-lance from 



118 THE SEA ROVERS 

Western New York. He raved over the cow- 
ardice of the dark skinned soldiers he com- 
manded, and profanely declared that, with 
half a dozen marines of the United States at 
his back, he would undertake to whip the en- 
tire Salvadorean army. His men, it may 
be stated in passing, did not understand 
English. 

Finally, in the war with Spain and the more 
recent operations in China, the Marine Corps 
added another moving and glorious chapter to 
its history. At Guantanamo the marine bat- 
talion, commanded by Colonel R. W. Hunting- 
don, fought the first serious land engagement 
of United States forces on foreign soil since 
the Mexican War. The fact that this bat- 
talion was attacked by the enemy in over- 
whelming numbers, and for over three days 
and nights was under constant fire, and that on 
the fourth day a portion of the battalion at- 
tacked and repulsed a superior force of Span- 
iards, shows, to quote the words of their chief, 
' ' that Colonel Huntingdon and his officers and 
men displayed great gallantry, and that all 



SOLDIERS SERVING AFLOAT 119 

were well drilled and under the most effective 
discipline. ' ' One of the men under Hunting- 
don 's command was Sergeant Thomas Quick, 
a lithe and fearless native of the mountains 
of West Virginia. At a critical stage of the 
operations, while the marines were engaged 
with the enemy firing from ambush, it became 
necessary to dislodge them, and it was desired 
that the Dolphin should shell the woods in 
which they were concealed. Quick volunteered 
to signal her, and standing on a hill wig- 
wagged her, while bullets backed the dust 
about him. For his action, described as 
"beautiful" by his commander, he, in due 
time, received a medal of honor and a lieuten- 
ant's commission. 

The headquarters of the Marine Corps are 
at the barracks in the City of Washington, 
where are located the commandant and his 
staff. Besides those previously mentioned, 
there are marine barracks at Portsmouth, 
Boston, League Island, Norfolk and Annapo- 
lis. But the fouled anchor running through 
a hemisphere traced with the outlines of the 



120 THE SEA EOVEES 

two American continents, which adorns the 
front of the marine's fatigue cap, tells that 
he is at home both on sea and land, and when 
on either, shrewd, sharp blows are to be 
struck he is ready for them. Nowhere in the 
world, size taken into account, is there a more 
efficient organization than this corps of 6,000 
brave fighting men. 



CHAPTEE V 

THE POLICE OF THE COAST 

The revenue cutter, though perhaps the 
least known, is one of the most useful 
branches of the Federal service. Its crea- 
tion antedates by several years that of the 
navy, and it boasts a glorious history. It 
polices the coast as the navy polices the 
ocean, and its duties are as varied as they are 
weighty and important. It cruises constantly 
from the fever infected regions of the Gulf to 
the icebound shores of the Arctic Sea. It is 
the terror and constant menace of the smug- 
gler and poacher. It sees to it that the quar- 
antine is strictly maintained, and that the 
neutrality laws are not violated by the greedy 
and lawless of our own and other lands. It 

is prompt in the prevention of piracy, and 

121 



122 THE SEA ROVERS 

suppresses mutiny with a heavy hand. It 
looks after emigrant ships and enforces the 
license and registry statutes. Last, but not 
least, it gives timely succor to the shipwrecked 
and annually preserves hundreds of lives 
and millions of dollars' worth of property. 
And so, wherever one familiar with its his- 
tory falls in with its trim white cutters, 
whether in the sunny courses of the Gulf, or 
on the borders of the great Atlantic highway, 
off the bleak New England coast, in the 
crowded harbors of our lake ports, or in the 
still waters of the Pacific, he is sure to give 
them glad, respectful greeting, as modest, 
graceful emblems not alone of our country's 
greatness, but better still, of duty bravely and 
nobly done. 

The Revenue Cutter Service celebrated the 
centennial anniversary of its existence six- 
teen years ago, having been organized in 1790. 
The credit for its creation belongs to Alex- 
ander Hamilton, that great first Secretary of 
the Treasury, to whom we owe so much, and 
whose memory in these days of self -vaunting 



THE POLICE OF THE COAST 123 

mediocrity we too often neglect to honor. His 
was a vision that saw clearly all the needs of 
the future, and as early as 1789 he earnestly 
advised the employment of " boats for the se- 
curity of the revenue against contraband." A 
little later he submitted to Congress a bill 
providing for a fleet of ten boats, to be thus 
distributed along the seaboard: Two for 
the Massachusetts and New Hampshire coast, 
one for Long Island Sound, one for New 
York, one for the waters of the Delaware 
Bay, two for the Chesapeake and its environs 
and one each for North Carolina, South Caro- 
lina and Georgia. Congress accepted the Sec- 
retary's recommendations, and in a few 
months ten swift cutters were built, armed 
and equipped, each vessel being manned by 
a crew of ten men. 

j Thus was born the Eevenue Cutter Service, 
a modest fleet of small, speedy vessels only a 
little larger than the yawls of the present 
time. In addition to their pay, the officers and 
crews received a part of the amounts derived 
from fines, penalties and forfeitures collected 



124 THE SEA ROVERS 

in case of seizures and for breaches of the 
navigation and customs laws, but later the 
officers were given larger salaries and the 
payment of prize money abolished. At first 
only a small force was required to adequately 
protect the commerce of an extensive yet thin- 
ly populated coast, but our foreign trade grew 
so rapidly, and the importance of our ship- 
ping interests increased so steadily, that it 
soon became clear that a strong cordon of 
well equipped and speedy cruisers would be 
necessary for their effective protection. For 
this reason, Congress, in 1799, gave the Presi- 
dent authority to equip and maintain as many 
revenue cutters as he should deem necessary 
for the proper policing of our coast-line. 

And thus the Revenue Cutter Service grew 
in size and became more efficient with each 
passing year. During the first quarter cen- 
tury of its existence, it was almost constantly 
in the eyes of the public, and its daring deeds 
frequently afforded welcome material to the 
novelists of the period. Among its duties 
it was charged with the suppression of piracy, 



THE POLICE OF THE COAST 125 

even so late as the opening of the last century, 
a serious menace to commerce; and it also 
waged a constant and relentless war against 
smugglers and smuggling. Those were the 
palmy days of the smuggler, who often made 
reckless hazard of his life in the illegal race 
for gain. Steam vessels had not yet come 
into use, and speed and safety then lay in 
trim lines and mighty spreads of canvas. 
Smugglers' schooners, sharp built, light of 
draught, and with enormous sails, were con- 
stantly hovering in the offing, biding some 
favorable opportunity to discharge cargoes 
upon which no duty had been paid. 

It was the business of the Revenue Cutter 
Service to keep watch upon these vultures of 
the sea, spoiling them of their quarry, and 
in this way sprang up hand-to-hand encoun- 
ters both by sea and land, sudden, sharp and 
terrible, in which many a gallant life was lost 
and fame and honor won. Now, however, 
the pirate and the smuggler, at least of the 
bold life-risking sort, have passed to the 
limbo of forgotten things, and the officers and 



126 THE SEA EOVEES 

men of the Eevenue Cutter Service no longer 
win glory and a reputation for bullet-chasing 
courage in their suppression. The new field 
which they have built up for themselves, is 
daring and full of danger, but it has not the 
same interest for the general public, and so 
their deeds of heroism are now performed 
in out-of-the-way corners, with no herald 
present to trumpet them to the world, and 
with the pleasant consciousness of duty well 
done as their only reward. 

The Eevenue Cutter Service in time of war 
has always co-operated promptly and effect- 
ively with the navy against the foe. Indeed, 
the cutters belonging to the Eevenue Cutter 
Service have taken a gallant and active part 
in all the wars of the United States save one. 
In 1797, when war with France threatened, 
the Eevenue Cutter Service was placed on a 
war footing, and by its promptness and vigi- 
lance, did much to uphold the dignity and 
prestige of the Federal Government. In the 
following year a number of cutters cruised 
with diligence and daring in West Indian 



THE POLICE OF THE COAST 127 

waters, and the record of the Revenue Cutter 
Service in guarding the seaboard and pre- 
venting the departure of unauthorized mer- 
chant ships, while the embargo act of 1807 
was in force, was also a fine one. 

Its services during the War of 1812 were 
as varied as they were brilliant. Not only 
did its vessels successfully essay perilous mis- 
sions, but they also took a gallant part in 
many of the most hotly contested naval ac- 
tions of the war. In fact, to the cutter Jeffer- 
son and its gallant crew belong the credit for 
the first marine capture of that contest, for 
within a week of the proclamation of war the 
Jefferson fell in with and captured the British 
schooner Patriot, with a valuable cargo, while 
on her way from Guadeloupe to Halifax. 
And this proved only a fitting prelude to a 
hundred illustrious deeds performed by the 
officers and crews of the Revenue Cutter 
Service during the following three years. In 
the second year of the war the revenue cut- 
ter Vigilance overhauled and after a sharp 
engagement captured the British privateer 



128 THE SEA EOVEES 

Dart, off Newport, while the cutters Madison 
and Gallatin carried many rich prizes into 
the ports of Charleston and Savannah. 

When in 1832 South Carolina threatened to 
secede from the Union, several cutters cruised 
off the Carolina coast, ready to assert by 
force the supremacy of the Federal Govern- 
ment. During the Seminole War revenue cut- 
ters were not only actively engaged in trans- 
porting troops and munitions, but were also 
of great service in protecting the settlements 
along the Florida coast. During the Mexi- 
can War eight revenue cutters formed a part 
of the naval squadron operating against the 
southern republic and participated gallantly 
in the assault on Alvarado and Tobasco, while 
the revenue cutters McLane and Forward 
contributed materially to the success of Com- 
modore Perry's expedition against Tobasco 
and Frontera in October, 1846. 

Finally, a volume would be required to ade- 
quately record the work of the Eevenue Cut- 
ter Service during the Civil War. Its cut- 
ters were employed as despatch boats, joined 



s 




■"•■ 








~ r y ' 


' . . :> 



AN OFFICER IN THE REVENUE CUTTER SERVICE 



THE POLICE OF THE COAST 129 

in the pursuit of blockade runners, did guard 
and scouting duty, and often shared in en- 
gagements with Confederate batteries and 
vessels. In truth, it was a revenue cutter, 
the Harriet Lane, which, in Charleston Har- 
bor, in April, 1861, fired on the Union side, 
the first shot of the Civil War. The Harriet 
Lane was long the pride of the Eevenue Cut- 
ter Service, and had a notable career. Named 
after the beautiful and gracious niece of Pres- 
ident Buchanan, she participated in the naval 
expedition to Paraguay, and during the Civil 
War was often under fire. Again, during 
the war with Spain, the Revenue Cutter Serv- 
ice achieved an enviable and heroic record. 

The proper patrol of our long coast line re- 
quires a large number of vessels, and the Eev- 
enue Cutter Service at the present time has 
a complement of thirty-seven vessels, all 
splendidly adapted to the work in hand. Dur- 
ing the last sixty years steamers have slowly 
but steadily replaced the top-sail schooners 
of the old days, and the vessels now employed 
by the Eevenue Cutter Service are, with one 



130 THE SEA ROVERS 

or two exceptions, small, compact, well-built 
steamers, which, save for the guns they carry, 
might easily be mistaken for swift steam 
yachts. In size they range from 130 to 500 
tons burden. The majority of them have 
been built under the direct supervision of offi- 
cers of the service and are perfectly adapted 
to the varying wants of the several stations. 
Nearly all of them are armed with from two 
to four breech-loading rifled cannon and carry 
small arms for the use of their crews. Most 
of the vessels bear the names of former sec- 
retaries and assistant secretaries of the 
Treasury, but the Andrew Johnson, the Will- 
iam H. Seward and U. S. Grant are also 
among the names to be found on the list. The 
U. S. Grant, which does duty at Port Town- 
send, is a bark-rigged steam propeller, and a 
model of its size and type. Strange to say, it 
is the only ship of the United States that 
bears the name of the greatest captain of his 
age. 

The vessels of the Revenue Cutter Service 
are always ready for instant duty in the most 



THE POLICE OF THE COAST 1 31 

distant quarters. When, in 1867, Alaska be- 
came a part of the United States, within a 
week after the ratification of the treaty, the 
revenue cutter Lincoln was steaming north- 
ward, and was the first to obtain accurate in- 
formation regarding the geography, re- 
sources and climate of our new possession. 
Three or more revenue cutters now cruise 
every year in Alaskan waters, guarding the 
seal fisheries and often giving much needed 
relief to the whaling fleet that yearly sails 
from San Francisco for a cruise in the waters 
above the Behring Sea. 

Officers and crews of the cutters doing serv- 
ice in the waters of Alaska have remarkable 
stories to tell, and the log-books of the cut- 
ters Corwin and Bear have been filled during 
the last twenty-five years with a record all too 
brief, of many thrilling adventures in the 
frozen North. The Corwin left San Fran- 
cisco for the Polar Sea in May, 1881, charged 
with ascertaining, if possible, the fate of two 
missing whalers, and to establish communica- 
tion with the exploring steamer Jeanette. 



132 THE SEA ROVERS 

Five times during the previous year the Cor- 
win had attempted to reach Herald Island, 
and failed each time. On this voyage better 
success attended, and after braving the perils 
of the drift ice, a landing was made, while 
at the same time the bleak coast of Wrangel 
Land was sighted to the westward. On Au- 
gust 12, 1881, the Corwin having pushed its 
way through great masses of floating and 
grounded ice, into an open space near the 
island, effected a landing on Wrangel Land, 
this being the first time that white men had 
ever succeeded in reaching that remote cor- 
ner of the Arctic waste. 

The cruises of the Corwin in 1880 and 1881 
covered over 12,000 miles, and the officers and 
crew, while carefully preventing illegal raids 
upon the sealing interests, also found time 
to prosecute important surveys and sound- 
ings, to make a careful study of the natives 
of Alaska, and to collect a great mass of im- 
portant data relative to the natural features 
and mineral wealth of the country. The 
cruises of the Corwin in the succeeding years 



THE POLICE OF THE COAST 133 

of 1882, 1883, 1884 and 1885, were of scarcely 
less importance. One of these cruises was to 
St. Lawrence Bay, Siberia, where timely suc- 
cor was given to the officers and crew of the 
burned naval relief steamer Bogers, which 
had gone north in the spring of 1881 in search 
of the Jeanette. During the Corwin's cruise 
in 1883 a considerable portion of the interior 
of Alaska was carefully explored and an out- 
break among the natives on the mainland 
promptly quelled. During its two succeed- 
ing cruises the Corwin saved from death 
nearly 100 shipwrecked whalers and destitute 
miners. 

Since 1885 the cutter Bear has patrolled the 
Alaskan waters, making a record equal to 
that of its predecessor. Its work in protect- 
ing the sealing fisheries is well known, and it 
has also suppressed in large measure the il- 
legal sale to the natives of firearms and 
spirits. Its record as a life saver is also a 
long one, and some of its experiences have 
been more thrilling than those to be founcl 
in the pages of any romance. 



134 THE SEA ROVERS 

When the Bear reached Alaskan waters 
in 1887 the captain of the whaling ship Hun- 
ter handed its commander a most remark- 
able message, which had been delivered to him 
a few days before by the natives of Cape 
Behring. This message consisted of a piece 
of wood, on one side of which was rudely 
carved: "1887 J. B. V. Bk. Nap. Tobacco 
give/' and on the other "S. W. C. Nav. M 10 
help come." 

The riddle offered by the message was 
speedily solved by the officers of the Bear. 
The bark Napoleon had been wrecked in 1885 
off Cape Navarin, and only fourteen of the 
crew of thirty-six men had been rescued. Of 
the unlucky twenty-two a few reached the Si- 
berian shore, but nothing had been heard of 
their subsequent fate. The officers of the 
Bear reasoned that the sender of the message 
was a member of the Napoleon's crew who 
had found refuge with the natives to the 
southwest of Cape Navarin and was now anx- 
iously awaiting rescue. This reasoning 
proved correct, and a few weeks later the 



THE POLICE OF THE COAST 135 

weary two years' exile of James B. Vincent, 
of Edgartown, Mass., boatswain of the Na- 
poleon, had a happy termination. 

The story Vincent told his rescuers, was of 
tragic and absorbing interest. The Napo- 
leon, caught in a storm, had been wedged in 
the ice and its crew compelled to take to the 
boats. The boats, four in number, were soon 
separated, and thirty-six days of fearful suf- 
fering passed before the one containing Vin- 
cent and his companions reached shore. In 
the meantime nine of the eighteen men in the 
boat had died and several others had been 
driven insane by their sufferings. Vincent 
was the only one who could walk when they 
reached land. Five more soon died and three 
of the survivors were helpless from frost bites 
and exhaustion when they fell in with a party 
of natives. A portion of the latter lived in- 
land, and these took Vincent with them when 
they returned to their homes. The following 
Spring when the natives visited the shore to 
fish, Vincent found his three shipmates barely 
alive, and they died soon after. 



136 THE SEA ROVERS 

When the fishing was over Vincent went 
back to the mountains with his new-found 
friends, and during the following winter 
carved and entrusted to wandering natives 
from Cape Behring the message which later 
brought about his rescue. When spring of 
the second year opened Vincent, with the na- 
tives, again started for the seashore to fish. 
Great was his joy a few weeks later when he 
was attracted by the shouting of the natives 
and looked up to see a white man and to find 
himself rescued at last. The Bear conveyed 
him to San Francisco, whence he made 
his way to his home in Massachusetts. 

While among the Eskimo, Vincent was 
kindly cared for by an old native, whose wife 
received him as her son. After a year the 
husband died, but his last instructions to his 
wife were to care for and keep their guest 
until he was rescued. When relief at last 
came the old woman with tears in her eyes, 
said that she was ready to die, for she had 
done as her husband wished. Warm and ten- 



THE POLICE OF THE COAST 137 

der hearts can be found even in Siberian 
wastes. 

The Bevenue Cutter Service is part of the 
Treasury Department, and comes under the 
direct jurisdiction of the Secretary of the 
Treasury. Subordinate to him are a chief 
and assistant chief of division. Each ves- 
sel of the service patrols the district to which 
it is assigned, and forms a picket line at the 
outer edge of government jurisdiction, which 
extends four leagues from the coast. Every 
vessel arriving in United States waters is 
boarded and examined, and its papers certi- 
fied. If a vessel liable to seizure or exam- 
ination does not bring to when requested to 
do so, the commander of a cutter, after dis- 
charging a warning gun, has authority to 
fire into such a vessel, and all acting under his 
orders are indemnified from any penalties or 
action from damages. On each cutter there 
are a captain, three lieutenants, a cadet, an 
engineer and two assistants, and a crew of a 
dozen or more men. 

The service includes in its several grades 



138 THE SEA ROVERS 

about one thousand men. Strict discipline 
is maintained, and its crews receive constant 
instruction and exercise in the use of great 
guns, rifles, carbines, pistols, cutlasses and the 
like. An officer of the Revenue Cutter Serv- 
ice must not only possess considerable execu- 
tive ability, but must also be a man of varied 
and accurate information, having a knowl- 
edge of gunnery and military drills, and be 
thoroughly familiar with the customs and 
navigation laws of the country. 

Rank is obtained by promotion, the latter 
being governed by written competitive exam- 
inations, from three to five of the senior offi- 
cers of a lower grade being selected for any 
vacancy occurring in the higher grade. A 
young man wishing to join the service as an 
officer undergoes a rigid examination held an- 
nually at Washington, and then serves for 
several years aboard the revenue schoolship, 
where he learns sea mathematics, sea law and 
seamanship. His period of apprenticeship 
ended, he joins a regular cutter as a junior 



THE POLICE OF THE COAST 139 

officer and waits for promotion at a salary 
of $85 per month. 

Life on board a revenue cutter during the 
months of summer is usually an easy and 
pleasant one, but in the winter there is an- 
other and different story to tell. From De- 
cember to April of each year the cutters 
cruise constantly on their stations to give aid 
to vessels in distress, and are, in most cases, 
forbidden to put into port unless under stress 
of weather or other unforeseen conditions 
arise. 

Few stormy winter days pass without the 
revenue cutter seeing a signal from some ves- 
sel in distress, and aid is never sought in vain. 
The cutter steers straight for the signal as 
soon as it is sighted, and when a quarter of 
a mile distant lowers a boat. Often a boat 
is launched into a sea where death seems cer- 
tain, but officers and men never shrink from 
their duty. When the boat gains the side 
of the vessel seeking aid, the master whom 
misfortune has overtaken, requests, as a rule, 
to be towed into port. When such a request 



140 THE SEA ROVERS 

is made, a line must be got to the distressed 
vessel and from the boat to the cutter, a task 
often performed with infinite difficulty and at 
the risk of life and limb. 

When a vessel is found drifting helplessly 
and about to dash itself upon rocks, the peril 
is even greater. Then the cutter must stand 
further away, and its boat is in constant dan- 
ger of being dashed upon the rocks. But, 
thanks to the skill, experience and coolness of 
the officers and crew of the cutter, a line is 
generally got into the boat and to the steamer, 
and the imperilled vessel hauled away to 
safety. 

One of the finest feats of life-saving ever 
performed by the Eevenue Cutter Service was 
that credited to the cutter Dexter, some years 
ago. On January 17, 1884, the iron-built 
steamer City of Columbus left Boston for the 
port of Savannah, carrying eighty-one pas- 
sengers and a ship's company of forty-five 
persons. Her commander was a capable and 
experienced seaman, and though by nightfall 
the wind, which had been blowing all day, had 



THE POLICE OF THE COAST 141 

increased to a hurricane, and a heavy sea was 
running, he had no serious apprehension of 
danger. The vessel, following her usual course 
through Vineyard Sound, had left behind 
nearly all the dangerous points which thickly 
bestrew those waters, and would soon be 
safely in the open ocean. It was at that luck- 
less moment that the captain left the bridge 
and went below, first directing the helmsman 
how to steer. 

Within an hour the steamer struck on 
Devil's Bridge, and an awful fate was upon 
the hapless passengers and crew, who were 
sleeping soundly, all unconscious of danger. 
The weather was bitter cold, the darkness in- 
tense, the wind blowing a hurricane and the 
waves rolling mountain high. In the twink- 
ling of an eye a hundred poor creatures were 
swept to their death in the icy waters. A 
few of the stronger ones took refuge in the 
rigging, but many of these, benumbed by the 
cold, dropped one by one from their supports 
and disappeared in the sea, while such 



s 



142 THE SEA EOVEES 

boats as were cleared away were either 
dashed to pieces or instantly swamped. 

The wreck occurred about four o'clock in 
the morning, and soon after daylight the Dex- 
ter reached the scene of the disaster. Her 
commander at once dispatched two boats to 
the rescue of those still clinging to the rig- 
ging of the Columbus, and thirteen men, 
jumping from their refuge into the sea, were 
picked up as they came to the surface, and 
conveyed to the Dexter. To reach the 
wreck in small boats through an angry sea 
was an undertaking so perilous as to make 
even the boldest pause, and called for cour- 
age of the highest order. However, the Dex- 
ter 's crew proved equal to the test, and 
Lieutenant John U. Rhodes made himself 
famous by an act of the noblest heroism. Two 
men, rendered helpless by cold and exposure, 
still clung to the rigging of the Columbus 
after all their companions had been taken off. 
To board the ill-fated vessel was impossible ; 
Rhodes essayed to reach it by swimming. He 
gained the side of the vessel after a gallant 



THE POLICE OF THE COAST 143 

battle with the waves, but was struck by a 
piece of floating timber, and had to abandon 
the attempt. Bruised and half fainting, he 
insisted upon making another trial, reached 
the vessel and brought away the two men, 
both of whom died a few hours later. The 
Legislature of Connecticut, Ehodes' native 
State, passed a resolution thanking him for 
his gallant conduct, and he received many 
medals and testimonials. 

Ehodes has since died, but the Eevenue 
Cutter Service still numbers among its offi- 
cers scores of men endowed with the flawless 
bravery of which he gave such shining proof 
at the wreck of the City of Columbus. One of 
these is Lieutenant James H. Scott. This 
brilliant young officer — I cite his case as a 
typical one — was born in Pennsylvania thirty- 
seven years ago, and while still in his teens 
shipped as a boy on a merchant vessel in 
commerce between Philadelphia and Ant- 
werp. Tiring of this trade, he sailed as an 
able seaman from New York to Bombay and 
other East Indian ports, making the last voy- 



144 THE SEA EOVEES 

age as boatswain of the good ship Eidgeway, 
after which, declining proffer of a second 
mate's berth, he entered the Eevenue Cutter 
Service as a cadet. 

Graduated in 1890, and made acting third 
lieutenant on the cutter Woodbury, it was 
then that young Scott, who while attached 
to the revenue schoolship had jumped over- 
board in Lisbon harbor and rescued the quar- 
termaster of his vessel, again gave proof of 
the sterling stuff that was in him. On a cold, 
clear day in January, 1891, the "Woodbury, 
which is stationed at Portland, Me., was cruis- 
ing to the eastward of that port, the ther- 
mometer below zero, and the rigging covered 
with ice. The Woodbury was about half-way 
over her cruising ground when the officer of 
the deck discovered a large three-masted 
schooner hard aground on a ledge of rocks 
which stood well out from the shore. A high 
sea was running at the time, though the cut- 
ter rose and fell to every wave with apparent 
unconcern, and breaking clean over the 
schooner, the crew of which had taken refuge 



THE POLICE OF THE COAST 145 

on the rocks and were now frantically sig- 
nalling for help. It was clear that -unless 
help reached them they wonld quickly perish 
from the cold. 

Captain Fengar, commanding the Wood- 
bury, ran in as close as he conld without peril 
to his vessel, and carefully surveyed the 
ground before giving an order. His practiced 
eye told him in a moment that to send in a 
boat of the cutter type would mean its cer- 
tain destruction against the rocks, even if it 
could live in the sea then running. However, 
the captain suddenly recalled that a fisher- 
man's village was only a few miles distant, 
and that there he could obtain a couple of 
dories admirably adapted to the task in hand. 
Shouting to the men on the rocks to hold on 
and not lose hope, the cutter, at a word from 
its commander, headed about, and went plung- 
ing and rolling at top speed in the direction 
of the village. Two hours later the Wood- 
bury was again on the scene, with a good-sized 
dory on one of her davits. 

Closing in on the wreck, Captain Fengar 



146 THE SEA BOVERS 

called for volunteers. Almost to a man the 
crew responded, but among the foremost were 
Cadets Scott and W. S. Van Cott. Captain 
Fengar allowed the two young men to go, but 
not without some misgivings. Both insisted 
on pulling oars, the dory being in charge of 
Lieutenant W. L. Howland, an experienced 
and capable officer. As the dory left the ship 
it was observed that a life-saving crew from a 
station well down the coast was approaching. 
It would never do to let the Woodbury be 
beaten, and her dory crew pulled with all the 
vim they could command. The race was to be 
a close one, but at the outset the Woodbury's 
boat gained the lead, and such a run, in such 
a sea, was never perhaps pulled by opposing 
boats. 

Lieutenant Howland in getting close in, 
dared not run up too close to the rocks, and 
after a couple of ineffectual attempts to heave 
a line was about to despair of success, when 
suddenly Cadet (now Lieutenant) Scott, se- 
curing the line around his waist, sprang over- 
board, before any one in the boat knew what 



THE POLICE OF THE COAST 147 

he was about. Shouting to Lieutenant How- 
land to pay the line out, young Scott was 
dashed upon the rocks and seized by the im- 
prisoned sailors. The brave young fellow 
was badly stunned, but he had gained his 
•point by getting the line to the rocks. Com- 
munication was now effected with the dory, 
which all this time was riding the seas at a 
safe distance. Another line was hauled up 
from the boat, and one by one the sailors 
jumped clear of the rocks and were hauled 
to the dory, whence they were conveyed with- 
out delay to the deck of the cutter. When 
rescued they had been fourteen hours on the 
rock. Since the incident just related, Lieu- 
tenant Scott, though still one of its youngest 
officers, has held every position in the Reve- 
nue Cutter Service. 

The present chief of the Revenue Cutter 
Service is Captain C. F. Shoemaker. He has 
climbed to this position from the lowest rung 
of the ladder, and is a man whose success 
would have been notable in almost any call- 
ing. Many of the other captains of the serv- 



148 THE SEA ROVERS 

ice are men of mark and achievement, for the 
Government has no nobler, better, braver 
servants than those who officer and man its 
revenue cutters. 



CHAPTER VI 



THE OCEAN PILOT 



The ocean pilots and deep sea divers of 
New York have one thing in common; both 
object to taking apprentices, and in the case 
of the former, at least, there is good reason 
for this, since they have been, for generations, 
the aristocrats of their calling. The pilots 
who sail out of Sandy Hook are no hardier 
than their rugged and fearless fellows of the 
North Sea, but they subject themselves to 
greater dangers by their long cruises, and 
rough, indeed, must be the weather that can 
keep them in port. They cruise night and 
day, in search of incoming craft; their 
torches' flare lights up the snow and sleet of 
winter storms and contends with the darkness 
of summer fogs; and they speak and board 

149 



150 THE SEA ROVERS 

in all sorts of weather and at all seasons the 
fleet liners that cross the western ocean in less 
than a week. And these pilots of the New 
York and New Jersey shores are a revelation 
to the tourist, who, having never heard of 
them, sees them for the first time. The lat- 
ter, in most cases, expects to watch a rough- 
and-ready sort of fellow in homespun, with 
a swaggering air and a boisterous manner, 
climb from the pilot's yawl up the black hull's 
towering side. Instead, he sees a man of 
modest and pleasing address, about whom 
there is little to indicate his calling, and much 
that bespeaks the merchant or clerk one meets 
of a morning on lower Broadway. There 
was a time when our pilots indulged in the 
luxury of a high silk hat when boarding ves- 
sels in sunny weather, but they are not so 
fastidious nowadays, and use derbies instead. 
Prosperous as a class, the pilots of New 
York pay dearly for their prosperity by the 
most arduous sea labor. Since 1853 more 
than thirty-five boats have been sunk and 
wrecked in various ways, and twice that num- 



THE OCEAN PILOT 151 

ber of pilots have lost their lives. There are 
at the present time upward of 160 pilots cruis- 
ing from the port of New York. They are 
subject to the supervision of a pilots' commis- 
sion of five members, named by the Governor 
of New York, and each pilot is appointed 
after a long and severe apprenticeship. He 
must first serve, boy and man, before the mast 
until he masters every problem in the man- 
agement of every form of rig. Then he must 
contrive to obtain the position of boat-keeper 
or pilot's mate. In that capacity he must 
serve three full years before he can be ad- 
mitted for his examination for a license. 
After this he must pass a most rigid examina- 
tion on all points of seamanship and naviga- 
tion before the Board of Pilot Commissioners, 
and show complete and exact knowledge of 
the tides, rips and sands and all other phe- 
nomena for many miles out from the piers of 
the East and North Eivers. 

But even after the candidate has received 
his license, he is sometimes forced to wait 
years, until some pilot happens to die and 



152 THE SEA EOVEES 

leave a vacancy for him. The first year of 
pilotage he is granted a license to pilot ves- 
sels drawing less than sixteen feet. If he 
gives satisfaction, the following year he is 
permitted to take charge of vessels drawing 
eighteen feet. If he passes a satisfactory 
examination the third year, he then receives 
a full license, entitling him to pilot vessels of 
any draught, and is then first called a branch 
or full pilot. On receiving his license, the 
pilot must give bonds for the proper dis- 
charge of his duty, and he is liable to heavy 
fines if he declines to fill a vacancy or board 
a vessel making signals for a pilot. Pilots 
are paid for their work by the foot, the 
charges varying according to the draught. 
For a ship drawing from twenty-one to twenty- 
eight feet they receive $4.88 a foot, and for 
one drawing six to thirteen and one-half feet 
$2.78 a foot, these rates being slightly in- 
creased in winter. 

A cruise on a New York pilot-boat, however 
brief, is an experience sure to be remembered. 
When a pilot-boat starts out on a hunt for 



THE OCEAN PILOT 153 

ships, it is decided in what order its half- 
dozen pilots shall take the prizes, and the 
man who is to board the first one is placed 
in command. The other pilots, meanwhile, 
take their ease as best suits their taste, the 
seaman's work being done by a crew of sailors 
hired for the purpose. One pilot, however, is 
always on the lookout for sails, and a lands- 
man is compelled to marvel at the certainty 
with which these ocean scouts discharge the 
task of sighting vessels, for often they are 
able to tell the name of a steamship before 
unaccustomed eyes can discern aught but a 
waste of waters and a wide expanse of sky. 
Still, a part of this skill may be due to the 
fact that pilots are always posted before go- 
ing out as to what vessels are expected, and 
from what direction they are coming, the 
watch being made all the keener by the fact 
that the bigger the ship the bigger is the 
pilot's pay. A ship, moreover, must take a 
pilot going out from the same boat that fur- 
nishes the pilot going into port, while if a cap- 
tain refuses a pilot he must pay full pilotage, 



154 THE SEA EOVEES 

and thus contribute his tithe to the support of 
the system. This latter rule seems, at first 
glance, a curious provision, but it is defend- 
ed on the ground that without it the business 
would not be remunerative enough for really 
competent men to engage in it, and that with 
unskilled pilots the annual losses would be 
greatly in excess of what they are at present. 
When a ship is sighted by daylight, a long 
blue burgee is hoisted to the peak of the pilot- 
boat, which means, "Do you want a pilot?" 
If there is no responsive signal, it is taken 
for granted that the answer is "Yes," but 
if a jack is hoisted the watchers know that 
the vessel has already been boarded by a 
pilot from some boat that has sailed farther 
away from port in the hunt for a ship. When 
a ship is sighted at night she is signalled by 
means of a torch charged with benzine and 
giving forth an intense light. Seen from the 
other vessel the effect is startling, the white 
light illuminating every sail and spar of the 
pilot-boat, so that it stands out, its number 



THE OCEAN PILOT 155 

clearly visible upon the mainsail, a gray spec- 
ter against the night's background. 

Should the answering signal be favorable, 
there follows a scene of great excitement on 
the deck of the pilot-boat. At first sight of 
the ship, the pilot due to take the prize dives 
down to the cabin, sheds his working clothes 
and dons a suit of sober black, and by the 
time it is known he is wanted, he is ready to 
be transferred to his charge. Taking on a 
pilot is not without its perils. The yawl 
nearly always pitches and tumbles in most 
uncomfortable fashion, while the ship is 
rarely if ever brought to a full stop, and the 
pilot, watching his chance, must grasp the 
rope ladder let down its side, and scramble 
aboard as best he can. Sometimes he gets a 
ducking, and if the weather is tempestuous he 
is pretty certain to be drenched, but for that 
he cares not a jot, and he is sure to show a 
smiling face to captain and passengers when 
finally he sets foot on deck. Dropping a pilot 
from an outgoing vessel is often more hazard- 
ous, especially in stormy weather, than his 



156 THE SEA ROVERS 

transfer the other way. Then he must de- 
scend the rope ladder and jump for the; boat 
in the nick of time, for to miscalculate in the 
least the position of the little shell means a 
ducking almost certainly, and possibly a 
watery grave. 

A peril, however, more feared by pilots 
than the one I have been describing, is the 
dreaded lee shore ; and with reason, as a story 
told by a veteran ocean pathfinder will show. 
On a still afternoon in midsummer the crew of 
a pilot-boat sighted a ship off Fire Island, 
some five miles away. In the dead calm pre- 
vailing the only way to board her was to 
row over the distance. There would be lit- 
tle danger in doing this if the wind did not 
spring up and the ship sail away, so the yawl 
was lowered and headed for the distant mer- 
chantman. But as night was closing in, and 
ere the yawl had come within hailing distance 
of the ship, of a sudden the breeze sprang 
up, and the vessel making sail, glided slowly 
over the horizon line. The breeze grew into 
a gale, and in the gathering storm and gloom 




PILOT SIGNALING A VESSEL 



THE OCEAN PILOT 157 

the men could no longer discern the where- 
abouts of the pilot-boat. INTor, there being no 
compass on board the yawl, could they deter- 
mine the direction in which they were being 
blown. The nearest land was miles away 
and the only thing that could be done was to 
keep the boat's head to the wind and wait. 
Thus the minutes lengthened into hours. To- 
ward dawn, when the night was darkest, they 
heard the thunder of surf on the reefs, and a 
little later felt the yawl lifted up on the crest 
of a mighty breaker rushing swiftly toward 
the land. There was a deafening roar, a 
crash, a whirl, and a torrent of foam. In a 
twinkling the boat was capsized and the poor 
fellows were struggling in the surf. One 
struck a rock and was killed, The others, 
freed from the receding wavei, ran up the 
beach, and by digging their hands into the 
sand to escape the deadly undertow, finally 
got ashore, drenched and exhausted. 

In the main, however, the system I have 

been describing has now become a thing of 

>the past. Potent causes have contributed to 



158 THE SEA ROVERS 

this result. Formerly pilot-boats had no par- 
ticular stations assigned to them, and boats 
have been known to cruise as far north as 
Sable Island, a distance of six hundred miles, 
in order to get steamers taking the northern 
courses. In the same way pilot-boats cruised 
long distances to the southward and straight 
out to sea to meet the incoming steamers and 
sailing vessels. Thus, unrestrained in its 
movements and left to seek out its own salva- 
tion, each boat sought to outdo the other in 
securing work, and all sorts of strategic de- 
vices were brought into play in order to first 
gain the side of an incoming vessel. Pilots 
took advantage of fog and night in order to 
slip by a rival, while jockeying for winds and 
position was indulged in to an extent that 
would be counted extraordinary in a yacht 
race. 

Competition, however, cut down earnings to 
such an extent that there came a time when 
many of the boats were no longer able to pay 
expenses. Then it was that some of the long- 
headed among the pilots, casting about for a 



THE OCEAN PILOT 159 

remedy for this evil, came to the conclusion 
that one steam pilot-boat would be able to do 
the work of three or four sailboats. It was 
accordingly decided some years ago that 
steamboats should gradually replace the ex- 
isting fleet of sail. With this innovation came 
restrictions regulating the cruising grounds 
of the boats. Instead of cruising about indis- 
criminately as formerly, each boat is now as- 
signed a certain beat. An imaginary arc has 
been described extending from Barnegat to 
Fire Island, a distance of seventy-five miles, 
and all pilot boats are expected to confine 
themselves within this line. Four pilot-boats 
patrol this line, each covering a beat of about 
nineteen miles. Inside of the circle are sta- 
tioned two more pilot-boats, while still further 
in is a boat known as the inner pilot-boat. 
Just off the bar another boat is stationed to 
receive the pilots dropped by outward-bound 
vessels. "When a boat in the outer circle be- 
comes unmanned or disabled, a boat from the 
inner circle takes its place, while a reserve 
boat occupies the beat left vacant on the in- 



160 THE SEA EOVEES 

ner circle. In this way all the beats are con- 
stantly patrolled in an efficient and economi- 
cal way. Each pilot takes his tnrn at the 
service, and is on board a boat cruising on 
the stations three days in seven, a moving 
contrast to the offshore service of other 
years, when a boat and crew were frequently 
compelled to remain at sea for weeks at a 
time. 

Indeed, under the new system of pilotage, 
battles with cross-seas and gales and ex- 
posures to snow, cold and sleet, while cruising 
for vessels hundreds of miles off coast, are 
fast becoming things of the past, and for 
stories of collisions, wrecks, narrow escapes 
and strange mishaps, one must now hark back 
to the records of former days. Here, how- 
ever, he is sure to encounter many a tale that 
quickens the pulse and stirs the blood. Take 
the case of the Columbia, run down by the 
steamship Alaska, off Fire Island. When the 
Alaska was sighted, the pilot-boat was head- 
reaching to the north on the port tack. The 
wind was blowing a gale from the northwest, 



THE OCEAN PILOT 161 

and an ugly sea was running, with the 
weather clear, but cold. She plunged deeply 
into the heavy sea, and heeled to the force 
of the wind until her lee rail was awash. The 
wind whipped off the top of the waves and 
filled the air with spray. When the steamship 
sighted the boat off Fire Island, her course 
was changed to make a lee for the boat 's yawl. 
She seemed to stop when the yawl was 
launched and two men and a pilot went over 
the side of the boat and dropped into her, but 
ere the yawl had fairly started on her way 
the liner, of a sudden, and without warning, 
forged ahead. The surge from the port bow 
of the Alaska, as she pitched into a big wave, 
capsized the boat, and threw the men into 
the water. Before anything could be done to 
save them the bows of the steamship rose and 
fell again, and, hitting the pilot-boat, cut it 
in two and crushed the decks and beams to 
bits, the broken timbers being swept under 
the bows and along the sides as the steamship 
again forged ahead and passed over the spot. 
Not a man on the Columbia was saved. 



162 THE SEA EOVEES 

The Sandy Hook pilot, however, never 
quails in the face of danger or even death, as 
was proved at the stranding of the packet 
boat, John Mintnrn, almost within a stone's 
throw of the New Jersey beach during a 
frightful hurricane in February, 1846. There 
were fifty-one souls on board the Minturn, 
and of that number only thirteen escaped to 
tell the story of that fearful night. Its hero, 
according to the evidences of all, was Pilot 
Thomas Freeborn, who to the very last strug- 
gled manfully to succor the hapless women 
and children who clung to the deck around 
him. It was bitter cold, and every wave that 
washed over the stranded ship left its coat- 
ing of ice on deck, rigging, passengers and 
crew. Freeborn and brave Captain Stark, 
who was forced to see his wife and children 
freeze to death without being able to render 
them assistance, gave up their own clothing in 
a vain attempt to protect the weaker suffer- 
ers, and when days afterward the pilot's body 
was found washed up on the beach it was 
almost naked, while that of a woman, which 



THE OCEAN PILOT 163 

lay near-by, was carefully wrapped in his 
pea-jacket. 

It has been three-score years since the 
wreck of the Minturn, but in every year 
since then there has been numbered among 
the members of the Sandy Hook Pilot's Asso- 
ciation scores of hardy men, who, should need 
come to them, stood ready to risk their lives 
and die as bravely as did Thomas Freeborn. 
Pilot Henry Devere proved that he had the 
same heroic fiber in his makeup when he 
sailed in the James Funck, before the Civil 
War. A brig under shortened sails was 
sighted one day, and when the yawl of the 
pilot-boat drew alongside, Devere hailed a 
boy at the wheel. The boy seemed to be stu- 
pefied, and the pilot was obliged to hail him 
several times before he started up, leaned for- 
ward into the companionway, and called 
feebly to somebody below. Then a gaunt man 
came on deck and said that the crew had 
been stricken by fever. Most people in the 
face of a menace of this sort would have 
turned back, but Devere was not that kind of 



164 THE SEA ROVERS 

man. Instead, he went on board, and, with 
the help of the mate, headed the vessel toward 
Sandy Hook. The captain was ill in his state- 
room. The body of a dead sailor found on 
deck was tied in mosquito netting and dropped 
overboard. The boy died in the lower bay, 
and the captain off the Battery, leaving the 
mate as the sole survivor of the crew. The 
pilot helped to furl the sails and make the 
lines fast, and only left the stricken vessel 
when she had reached her moorings. 

The stranding of the Jesse Carll in 1889, il- 
lustrates another of the dangers with which 
pilots sometimes have to contend. The boat, 
having discharged one of her five pilots, was 
standing off shore near Fire Island, when she 
began to feel the force of an advancing south- 
ern cyclone, and early in the evening was in 
what sailors call " nasty weather." At mid- 
night a violent thunder-storm burst overhead, 
and the increasing wind raised a furious sea, 
but Pilot Gideon Mapes, in charge of the ves- 
sel, had her under double-reefed sails, and 
standing up against the wind and waves in 



THE OCEAN PILOT 165 

fine shape. Then came a deluge of rain, and 
the wind increased to hurricane force. Soon 
a thick mist covered the water and shut out 
everything in sight. The boat reached off 
and on, expecting to keep out of shoal water, 
but all efforts failed. Her signals of dis- 
tress were seen by the life-saving crew on the 
beach, and before daylight the ten men on 
board were taken ashore in boats. When 
morning came an effort was made to pull the 
boat off, but as she shifted into deeper water 
she filled, a hole having been made in her bot- 
tom. Then the pilots abandoned her, but she 
was raised and repaired a few weeks later. 

Stories like these are what the pilots tell 
in their idle hours. Searching for them at 
such a time, one is most likely to find them 
at the Pilots' Club, a flourishing social or- 
ganization, which has roomy quarters just 
under the roof of a big office building within 
hailing distance of the Battery. Here at all 
hours of the day a score or more of pilots are 
sure to be sitting about spinning yarns, play- 
ing cards and checkers and reading the news- 



166 THE SEA ROVERS 

papers and magazines. Their well-furnished 
clubrooms contain a great number of pre- f 
cious curios — relics from all quarters of the 
globe. There are firearms of curious antique 
pattern; autograph letters by such famous 
sea-dogs as Macdonough and Porter; a tiny 
chest of drawers carved from one of the tim- 
bers of John Paul Jones' ship, the Bon 
Homme Richard; a portrait of Washington 
by Stuart, surrounded by two large Ameri- 
can flags, and a model of the pilot-boat Sting- 
aree, which was built in 1810, and was one 
of the most famous crafts of her day. 

This model shows that the years have 
wrought great changes in the building and 
rigging of pilot-boats. In old times the boats 
simply carried mainsail, foresail, and fore- 
staysail and jib. They had no foretopmast, 
and on their maintopmast carried a flying 
gaff-topsail, which was hoisted from the deck. 
Now the boats have both fore and maintop- 
masts, and each carries a mainsail, foresail, 
forestaysail, jib, jib-topsail, maintopsail and 
staysail and fore and main standing-gaff top- 



THE OCEAN PILOT 167 

sails, which give them an immense spread of 
sail, compared with that used by the boats of 
earlier times. A schooner-rigged pilot-boat 
costs from $15,000 to $16,000. That was about 
the cost of the Caldwell H. Colt, a good ex- 
ample of the typical pilot-boat. She is eighty- 
five feet long with twenty-one feet beam, 61.43 
tons, custom-house register, and a rig as trim 
and jaunty as that of an ordinary yacht. 
The pride, however, at present writing, of the 
New York Sandy Hook fleet is the New York, 
built of steel, propelled by steam, and able 
to stand as much buffeting in cyclonic seas as 
the stanchest of the liners. She was built on 
the Delaware from designs by A. Cary Smith, 
is 155 feet long, 28 feet beam, 19 feet 7 inches 
deep, and is driven by a compound surface- 
condensing engine of 100 horse-power. Her 
pole masts are of steel, and she spreads on 
them enough canvas to steady her. The New 
York has accommodations for twenty-four 
pilots, who fare more luxuriously than they 
ever did on any of the old sailing craft. They 
have a smoking-room in a separate steel deck- 



168 THE SEA ROVERS 

house, aft of the engine-room, fitted up like a 
similar room on an ocean steamship, while the 
lifeboats in which they leave the New York 
to board incoming vessels are hoisted and 
lowered by a steam derrick in less than a min- 
ute. It is intended that in a few years the 
entire fleet shall be made up of vessels equal 
if not superior to the New York. 



CHAPTER VII 



THE DEEP-SEA DIVEK 



Theee is something about the occupation of 
the diver that strongly appeals to the imagi- 
nation, and with reason, for working fathoms 
below the surface of the water, in semi-dark- 
ness, dependent upon a rickety pump for the 
breath of life, his trade is at best a perilous 
and precarious ones. Perhaps, that is why 
divers as a class are opposed to taking ap- 
prentices, and that a majority of the men who 
drift into the calling do so by accident. Most 
divers, if you question them, will tell you that 
the best, if not the only way to acquire their 
art is to put on a diving suit, go down 
into the depths, and learn the business for 
yourself. 

That was what a diver who was preparing 

169 



170 THE SEA EOVEES 

for work in the East Eiver said to me, and, 
fitting the action to the word, I asked him to 
loan me his suit, and permit me to try my 
'prentice hand at the business. He protested 
goodnaturedly, but finally yielding, brought 
out his suit, and helped me to put it on. The 
outfit in which I speedily found myself ac- 
coutred, consists of two suits, one within the 
other, and both of india-rubber. The stock- 
ings, trousers and shirt are all made together 
as one garment, which the wearer enters at 
the neck, feet first. The hands are left bare, 
the wristbands of the rubber shirtsleeves 
tightly compressing the wrists. There is a 
copper breastplate, bearing upon its outer 
convex surface small screws adjusted to 
holes in the neck of the shirt, which by 
means of nuts fastened upon the screws, is 
held so securely in place as to render the 
entire dress from the neck downward abso- 
lutely air and water-tight. Fitting with equal 
closeness to the breastplate is a helmet, com- 
pletely inclosing the head and supplied with 
three glasses, one in front and one on each 



THE DEEP-SEA DIVER 171 

side, to enable the diver to look in any di- 
rection. Finally, for his feet there is a pair 
of very thick leather shoes, made to lace up 
the front, and supplied with heavy leaden 
soles to prevent him from turning feet upper- 
most in the water. 

When, with my friend's aid, I had donned 
this curious-looking dress, he placed across 
my shoulders ropes sustaining two leaden 
weights, one hanging at my breast and the 
other at my back. Sometimes in very strong 
currents it is necessary to make the weights 
which the diver carries extraordinarily heavy. 
Such was the case with those hanging over 
my shoulders on the occasion of my first dive. 
"While the diving dress I wore weighed of 
itself nearly two hundred pounds, yet, much 
to my surprise, when once below the surface, 
I did not find the burden I sustained in wear- 
ing it any more than I did that of my ordinary 
clothing when out of the water. It also 
seemed marvelous to me, after daylight had 
swiftly merged into the twilight of the depths, 
that though I was several fathoms under 



172 THE SEA EOVEES 

water my breathing was free and uncon- 
strained, for an air-pnmp worked by two men 
supplies the diver with air, which passes into 
his helmet through a hose at the back. Near 
the place of its entrance is a spring valve for 
its escape, This can be controlled by the 
diver, but he usually sets it before going into 
the water and seldom disturbs it afterward, 
since the pressure of the air being greater 
than that of the water a surplus of the former 
readily escapes. 

When the valve proves insufficient to per- 
mit the escape of all the dead air the diver can 
open in his breast-plate a similar spring valve 
intended only for such an emergency. He 
can also regulate the amount of air pumped 
to him by signals on the air-hose to the men 
engaged in pumping, one pull meaning more 
and two pulls less air. These signals by 
means of the air-hose are generally used by 
all divers, but each diver has also his own 
private code of signals upon the life-line, 
which is always fastened to his waist, and by 
which he is drawn up out of the water. These 



THE DEEP-SEA DIVER 173 

signals each diver writes down very carefully 
and gives to the man in charge of the life- 
line. By means of these he can, without com- 
ing to the surface, send for tools, material or 
anything needed for the work he has in hand. 
When a lengthy communication is to be made 
the diver often sends up for a slate and writes 
what he wishes to say. Old divers declare 
that it is just as easy to read and write under 
the water as it is out of it, all objects being 
greatly magnified. 

The only unpleasant sensation of my stay 
below was a slight drumming in the ears — 
walking under the water I found an easy mat- 
ter — and when hauled to the surface I de- 
clared my first attempt at diving a wholly suc- 
cessful one. However, the man whose suit 
I had borrowed, smiled at my enthusiasm, and 
declared with something akin to contempt 
that there was a good deal of difference be- 
tween deep-sea diving and grubbing about the 
East Eiver for a lost anchor. I learned be- 
fore we parted that he was a deep-sea diver 
forced for the moment to accept whatever task 



174 THE SEA EOVEES 

came to hand, but there was truth in what he 
said ; and I am also convinced, after talks with 
a dozen members of his fraternity, that nei- 
ther a single descent nor even many descents 
into the depths, can give one an adequate idea 
of the weird strangeness of a diver's life. 
That can come only from the cumulative ex- 
perience of a lifetime. 

Almost all the submarine work on the At- 
lantic coast is done by divers living in New 
York or Boston. There are about as many 
skilled divers in Boston as New York — per- 
haps twenty in each city. The pay of a skilled 
diver is five dollars a day of four hours or 
less. In that time a man may descend half 
a dozen times, or he may descend once and 
stay four hours, but be his period of labor 
long or short, it counts as a day. If at the 
end of four hours he descends again that de- 
scent counts as another day's labor. The 
diver's assistant receives three dollars. He 
is a skilled man, whose business it is to man- 
age the life-line and the hose, and who some- 
times becomes a diver. The pumpers, who 



THE DEEP-SEA DIVES 175 

run the pump that keeps the diver supplied 
with air, are each paid two dollars a day. 
They are not skilled workmen and seldom de- 
velop into divers. 

Probably a third of the New York divers 
do not work for wages. These are men who 
own their outfits and prefer to work by the 
job. Some of the self -employing divers enjoy 
good incomes from their labors. As a rule, 
a diver of this class goes down, looks at a 
sunken vessel, and then states what he will 
charge to raise her. Diver Victor Hinston 
was paid $150 a day for locating the sunken 
steamship City of Chester, and Captain An- 
thony Williams, having raised the schooner 
Dauntless in two days, received $750 for his 
time and trouble. The same diver, having 
repaired with iron plates and raised in four 
days the steamer Meredith, ashore near Jere- 
mie, in Hayti, demanded and was paid $7,500 
for his work. The divers of New York live 
much as other citizens of the metropolis. A 
majority of them are native Americans, with 
homes, wives and children. They are, of 



176 THE SEA EOVEES 

course, absent from home a great deal and 
on short notice, for divers from New York 
are not only sent all over the eastern coast 
of the continent, but even to the Great Lakes 
and the interior rivers, most of their work 
lying beyond the city. 

Abram Onderdonk, when he died not long 
ago, was the oldest deep-sea diver in this 
country. During forty of the nearly seventy 
years of his life he was continuously engaged 
in the pursuit of his calling, and it carried 
him to nearly every part of the globe. 
Captain Abe, as his friends called him, 
counted the swordfish as the gravest 
danger members of his craft have to 
fear. This fish, which has a short bony sword 
almost as strong as steel, protruding from its 
head, speeds along through the water, charg- 
ing dead ahead and never veering from its 
course for anything save a rocky ledge or the 
iron hull of a steamship. If it strikes a 
wooden craft, its sword seldom fails to cut 
clean through the vessel's side. Should a 
man be attacked by it certain death awaits 



THE DEEP-SEA DIVER 177 

Mm. Diver Onderdonk himself never en- 
countered but one of these creatures, and that 
was a young one whose sword had not yet 
hardened. He was at work on the deck of a 
sunken vessel, when he saw the fish coming 
from a distance, and heading straight toward 
him. He took a tighter grip upon the ax 
which he held in his hand, and made ready 
for attack, but, to his surprise and relief, the 
fish, never swerving from its course, glided 
past him out of his guard's range, and a mo- 
ment later disappeared. 

Captain Abe often encountered sharks 
under water, but declared that, as a rule, there 
is little to be feared from them. A former 
mate of his named March, however, once had 
an ugly experience with these creatures. The 
diver in question was at work in a wreck 
which had been loaded with live cattle. When 
she had been at the bottom for a month or so 
the cattle became light and began rising to 
the surface. The locality was infested with 
sharks, which quickly gathered round the 
hatchway, seizing the carcasses as they came 



178 THE SEA BOVERS 

out and following them to the surface. Some 
of the catt]e had been tied, and these floating 
out to their ropes ' end, were torn to pieces by 
the sharks, which soon began to fight among 
themselves, with the diver an unwilling wit- 
ness to their struggles. March, hesitating 
to ascend for fear he might be attacked, and 
afraid to remain below lest the snap of a 
shark's mouth should sever his air hose, in 
the end gave the signal to be hauled up, and 
the next instant was jerked into and through 
the school of sharks. He came out of the 
water maimed for life, as in his upward pass- 
age a shark snapped at him and took off his 
right hand, thus rendering him incapable of 
further service as a diver. 

Another of Captain Abe's old mates, Mc- 
Gavern by name, while at work in New Zea- 
land waters, had an equally harrowing, al- 
though fortunately less harmful, encounter 
with that most formidable of all marine mon- 
sters, the devil fish. The diver was laying 
some wharf-blocks when suddenly surprised 
by his uncanny foe. Despite his struggles — 



THE DEEP-SEA DIVER 179 

and he was a giant in stature and strength — 
the monster quickly and completely overpow- 
ered him. He was locked in the tremendous 
claws of the devil fish, and fastened helpless 
against a submerged spile. McGavern real- 
ized his peril, and kept quiet until his assail- 
ant, whose arms measured nearly nine feet, 
loosened his hold. Then he signalled to be 
drawn up, and came to the surface with the 
writhing creature still clinging to his back. 

Captain Abe served before the mast in his 
youth, and I find that, other things being 
equal, sailors make the best divers of all. 
Their former experience is apt to render 
them cool and quick-witted in the presence of 
danger, and their knowledge of a ship's rig- 
ging and construction proves of untold value 
to them in their work. To his training as a 
sailor Captain Charles Smith, a well-known 
Boston diver, probably owed his truly mar- 
velous escape from death when overtaken by 
accident while at work on the sunken hull of 
the Clara Post, in the harbor of Bridgeport, 
Conn., a few years ago. The wreck lay six- 



180 THE SEA BOVEBS 

teen fathoms deep, and when Captain Smith 
descended to examine it, he found that the 
masts had gone by the board, and that the 
deck had been torn off by the waves, while the 
cross timbers strewed with the wreckage, 
hung over the decks and into the hold. Cap- 
tain Smith began to cut them away, when 
suddenly the tangled mass shifted and fell 
part way in the hold, catching him with it and 
prisoning him as in a vise. The diver could 
not see far in the deep water in which he was 
at work, and finding himself pinned in, how 
he could not tell, he pulled the life-line 
three times — the signal that his life was in 
peril. He felt himself rising a few feet; 
then all the wreckage fell in upon him, pinning 
him more securely than before. Worse still, 
when he tried to free himself, he found that 
the air-pipe had encountered some unseen ob- 
struction, and that to attempt to move about 
would shut off his supply of air. The peril 
was one that made each moment seem like 
eternity. 
Meanwhile the diver's assistants were try- 




A DIVER READY TO DESCEND 



THE DEEP-SEA DIVER 181 

ing to discover what had happened to him. 
It seemed to them that the signal to haul np 
had been instantly followed by one to lower, 
and then by one to stop. The men at the 
life-line, confused at these apparently contra- 
dictory commands, ordered the derrick to 
haul on the blocks. Nothing yielded to the 
strain, and the men at the pumps labored until 
they were exhausted, and had to give way 
to others, but still no signs of release. A new 
danger now threatened the imprisoned man. 
In catching hold of some iron bolts he had cut 
a small hole in the valve of one of his rub- 
ber gloves, and water, filling the glove, was 
slowly oozing past the clamps at the wrist, 
and creeping up the arm. It seemed to the 
helpless diver, held fast in the tide-swept 
mass, that he would soon be strangled or 
crushed to death. Confused by the great air 
pressure in his helmet, he had about con- 
cluded that his end had come, when — unlooked 
for relief — the wreckage gave a lurch, and he 
found that he could climb up to one of the 
deck timbers. He grasped his ax, and was 



182 THE SEA BOVERS 

hewing desperately for freedom, when sud- 
denly the whole mass broke away, and began 
to rise rapidly, carrying the diver, now head 
downward, with it. His queer ascent did 
not consume more than ten seconds, but it was 
long enough for him to live over in memory 
all the events of a lifetime of two-score years. 
At first his comrades failed to discover him in 
the mass of tangled material, and their sur- 
prise can be imagined when he shot up 
through the wreckage, feet first. Captain 
Smith described this as his closest call to 
death's door, "and" he added, "I have 
peeped through the keyhole pretty often, ' ' 

Captain Smith's adventure reminded a 
brother diver, in whose presence it was told, 
of a narrow escape of his own. It occurred 
while he was putting some copper on the bot- 
tom of a steamer in dock. ' ' I took some plate 
down with me," he said, "and worked for a 
while on one side of the hull, after which I 
started in to put some plates on the other side. 
The vessel was about three feet off the bot- 
tom, and I crawled underneath, dragging the 



THE DEEP-SEA DIVER 183 

plates behind me, After I had been at work 
for an hour or so I noticed that my air was 
getting short, but when I tried to get under 
the keel again to be hauled up, I found the 
steamer on the bottom and squeezing my air- 
hose between its keel and the ground. The 
tide was ebbing and the hull had gradually 
sunk until it was almost aground. I had for- 
gotten all about the tide, and when I pulled 
the hose it refused to move an inch. If the 
bottom had been soft it would not have mat- 
tered so much, but it was rock, and the hose 
was gripped like a vise. There was nothing 
to do but wait; if she fell any lower the air 
would be entirely shut off and I would have 
to die. Not till my last hour shall I forget 
the torture of those few minutes while I 
waited to see whether it rose or fell. My head 
felt as though it was bursting, and my nose 
and ears were bleeding. I took heart, how- 
ever, when the air began to freshen, for I 
knew then that the tide had turned, and that 
the hull was rising. There was plenty of time 
for me to recover my nerve before it was 



184 THE SEA ROVEBS 

high enough off the bottom for me to crawl 
under, but I did not get" it back. Instead, I 
stood there shaking like one stricken with 
palsy until I could squeeze under the bottom 
and give the signal to be hauled up. I reached 
the surface in a half-fainting condition, and 
was sick for weeks afterward. When I did 
recover it was with hearing permanently 
impaired. ' ' 

Diving in the Great Lakes is attended with 
even greater perils than those I have just 
been describing. In Lake Huron, opposite 
the entrance of Thunder Bay, a large buoy 
marks the spot where, nearly twenty-five 
fathoms deep, lies the wreck of a once famous 
lake vessel, which sank while sixty of its pas- 
sengers were still in their berths, not one of 
whom evermore made sign. The steamer 
took down with it when it sank not only that 
precious human freight, but $300,000 in gold 
coin and five hundred tons of copper. The 
sunken steamer was the Pewabic. Bound 
down the lakes from Copper Island, then the 
richest known deposit of pure copper in the 



THE DEEP-SEA DIVEK 185 

world, it collided with the steamer Meteor, 
bound up the lakes, and sank almost instantly. 
Diving apparatus was at that time some- 
what crude upon the lakes, and the great 
depth of water in which the Pewabic went 
down made it out of the question to attempt 
to raise it or to recover any of its valuable 
cargo. Twenty-five years after the wreck the 
sunken vessel was located by means of grap- 
pling irons, and a Toledo diver ventured to 
go down and inspect it. He was hauled up 
dead. In spite of his fate, two other divers, 
tempted by the price offered, went down at 
different times. Neither survived the ven- 
ture, and until 1892 nothing further was done 
toward recovering the wealth lying in the 
wrecked Pewabic. Then a noted diver, Oliver 
Peliky by name, who had with apparatus of 
his own devising done safer work in deeper 
water than any other diver on the lakes had 
ever been able to withstand, announced his 
willingness to go down to the wreck. He was 
taken to the spot, the wreck was located by 
grapples and Peliky went down. He was 



186 THE SEA BOVERS 

below twenty minutes and then signalled to 
be drawn up. When he reached the surface 
he said he had experienced no great incon- 
venience, had gone into the wreck, and was 
enthusiastic in his belief that he could do the 
work that was necessary to recover the cargo 1 . 
He went down again, and for a quarter of an 
hour answered every signal. Then he failed 
to respond. The men on the tender pulled 
on the life-line. It had plainly caught on 
some obstruction. The crew, believing that 
Peliky was dead, backed the steamer. The 
jerk loosened the life-line. They hauled the 
diver to the surface. His armor was opened, 
as if burst by some great force. The diver r 
of course, was dead. Since then, though 
handsome inducements have been held out to 
various divers, no further attempt has been 
made to recover the treasure that has lain for 
more than a generation in the Pewabic's hold. 
One of the divers with whom I have talked 
told me that somehow diving took the life out 
of a man, and that he had never known a 
diver who did much smiling; "I have an im- 



THE DEEP-SEA DIVER 187 

pression myself,' ' he added, "that I shall go 
down one of these days without coming up 
again." In truth, before my wanderings 
among them were ended, I came to the con- 
clusion that divers, as a class, are taciturn, 
grave, sober-faced men, but I also found that 
the calling they follow has its humorous as 
well as its serious side, although too often 
the humor has a dash of the grewsome to it, 
as was the case with a diver who went down 
to work on the steamship Viscaya, sunk in a 
collision off Barnegat Light. It was a diffi- 
cult job, so two divers were sent down— one 
of them to remain on deck in sixty feet of 
water, to act as second tender to the other 
diver who went below. The latter had been 
at work but a few minutes when three jerks 
came over the life-line. He was so unnerved 
when hauled up to the deck that he forgot that 
he was still in sixty feet of water, and sig- 
nalled to have his helmet removed. When 
both divers had been hauled to the surface, 
he said that while he Was working through a 
gangway, he had seen two huge objects com- 



188 THE SEA BOVERS 

ing toward him; and nothing could dissuade 
him from the belief that he had encountered 
two submarine ghosts — until the other diver 
went down and discovered that there was a 
mirror at the end of the gangway, and that 
the diver had seen the reflection of his own 
legs, vastly enlarged, coming toward him. 

The veteran from whom I had this story 
told me also of the amusing mistake made by 
a diver, who, much against his will, had been 
sent down to recover a body from a wreck. 
Some divers have an ineradicable dread of the 
dead, and never handle them when they can 
possible avoid it. He was one of this kind, 
and the water being very thick, he went grop- 
ing gingerly about in the cabin. After a 
lengthy search he found a body, and fasten- 
ing a line around it, gave the signal to haul it 
up. When he followed and took off his hel- 
met a large hog lay on the deck. He had 
tied the line around it, thinking it was the 
body he was looking for. After that he was 
always called the ' ' pork ' ' diver. His former 
comrades have likewise many amusing stories 



THE DEEP-SEA DIVER 189 

to relate of a diver of other days, Tom Brint- 
ley by name, who, though a competent man 
and a good fellow, was a little too fond of 
stimulants. On one occasion he went down 
while in his cups, and the men above not 
knowing his condition, became seriously 
alarmed when several hours passed by with- 
out their receiving any signals from him or 
any response to those they made to him. An- 
other diver, sent down to look for him, found 
him lying on his back at the bottom of the 
ocean, sixty feet below the surface, fast 
asleep ! 

The bed of the ocean would seem to most 
people an exceedingly strange place in which 
to take a nap, but divers live in a world of 
their own— a world of which their fellows 
know little or nothing, yet abounding at every 
turn with curious, beautiful, and indeed, al- 
most incredible sights. Sometimes, especially 
in tropical waters, the bottom of the sea is 
a lovely spectacle, and divers grow enthusi- 
astic when they describe its forests of kelp 
and seaweed gently waving in the tide, which 



190 THE SEA ROVERS 

look like fairyland, in dim light, and the 
bright-colored fish making them all the more 
beautiful. Along the coast of the Island of 
Margueretta, and in many parts of the Car- 
ibbean Sea, there are submarine scenes of 
surpassing beauty. Often the bed of the 
ocean is as smooth and firm as a house floor, 
and the water as transparent as crystal, while 
the white sandy bottom acts as a reflector to 
the bright sunshine above the surface. In 
some places there are widespreading pastures 
of stumpy, scrubby marine vegetation, a 
growth not unlike seaweed, and of a bluish 
gray tinge. There are also clumps of fan- 
shaped fungi, of a spongy consistency, which 
when dried in the sun are exceedingly beau- 
tiful. But the most wonderful growths in 
these gardens of Neptune are the long kelp 
tubas, resembling our fresh-water pond-lilies, 
only of much larger size. Their stems are 
tough and hollow, and put forth pretty blos- 
soms on the surface, although their roots are 
in the bed of the ocean, many fathoms below. 
In the West Indies and the Spanish Main 



,THE DEEP-SEA DIVER 191 

the water is so clear and transparent that the 
bottom is visible at a depth of from sixty to 
a hundred feet below the surface, and the 
scope of the diver's vision is seldom less than 
an eighth of a mile. In Northern seas, how- 
ever, especially in the harbors of towns and 
cities, the water is so discolored and murky 
that nothing can be seen at about twenty feet 
from the surface, a disadvantage which calls 
for the exercise of the gift of which all divers 
are most boastful — their delicacy of touch. 
Indeed, most frequently the diver must do 
his work under water by means of touch only, 
and when one considers the varied tasks he 
is called upon to perform, pipe laying, build- 
ing, drilling holes in rocks and charging them 
with dynamite in darkness, looking for treas- 
ure, recovering dead bodies and sunken car- 
goes, or inspecting all parts of a wrecked ves- 
sel, buried in water a hundred feet deep, it 
is not to be wondered at that he should be 
proud of any special skill in this direction 
with which nature and practice have favored 
him. With some, this delicacy of touch be- 



192 THE SEA ROVERS 

comes in time almost a sixth sense. Diver 
C. P. Everett, of New York, is one of these. 
Four or five years ago, he laid a submarine 
timber foundation of twenty-eight feet long 
12 x 12 yellow pine, handling it alone. First, 
the pieces were weighted to sink; and then 
Everett went down and weighted them for 
handling, for without weights they would, of 
course, have immediately risen to the surface. 
Only a strong man can become or, at least, 
long remain a successful diver. No one is 
fit for the calling who suffers from headache, 
neuralgia, deafness, palpitation of the heart, 
intemperance, or a languid circulation. The 
pressure of the atmosphere increases the 
lower one descends, until a point is reached 
where life could not be maintained. The 
greatest depth, perhaps, ever reached, was 
201 feet, with an atmosphere pressure of 87 
pounds to the square inch. A diver named 
Green worked in 145 feet in Lake Ontario, but 
he was paralyzed, and never did a day's work 
afterward. Most divers do not care to work 
much deeper than 120 feet, and even for 



THE DEEP-SEA DIVER 193 

30 or 40 feet, a moderate depth, considerable 
nerve and practice are requisite. The lower 
the depth, the more acute the pains felt in 
the ears and about the eyes, and symptoms of 
paralysis become more pronounced. An asth- 
matic man, on the other hand, may be cured 
by diving, the constant supply of fresh air, 
and the pressure which drives the blood so 
rapidly opening up the lungs. Divers as a 
rule cannot stand close rooms, being so ac- 
customed to a copious supply of fresh air that 
they must have plenty of it, even when they 
are above water. In diving, the supply of 
air is increased according to the depth. At 
thirty feet below the surface fifteen pounds 
of air to the square inch is used, at sixty feet 
thirty pounds, and so on. Still, much de- 
pends on the man, and some divers work in 
eighty feet of water with only forty-five 
pounds. 

In the laying of masonry under the water 
and other work of the kind, the diving dress 
is usually replaced by the diving bell. This 
is a large vessel full of air, but open at the 



194 THE SEA ROVERS 

bottom, fresh air being pumped into it by air 
pumps. It is furnished with seats, and a 
chain passes through the center, by which 
weights can be raised or lowered. The div- 
ing bell has this advantage over the dress, 
that several men can work in company; on 
the other hand, should an accident happen, 
more lives are involved. Some years ago 
the chain of a diving bell in use at a pier in 
Dover, England, got fouled in some way and 
its occupants found themselves in a most 
alarming predicament. However, a diver 
named William Wharlow, donning his suit, 
descended, crowbar in hand, and after several 
hours of hard work, succeeded in freeing the 
chain, when the diving bell was hauled up in 
safety. 

It was stated a little while ago that some 
divers have an ineradicable dread of the 
dead ; many will not have anything to do with 
them, when they come upon them by accident 
they will be unnerved and useless for the rest 
of the day, and those who make a virtue of 
necessity, when on a wreck generally insist 



THE DEEP-SEA DIVER 195 

upon getting the bodies ont first. The tem- 
perature of the water always tells the diver 
where to look for bodies in a wreck; if it is 
cold they will be on the floor or lying in the 
berths; if warm they rise to the ceiling or 
against the bottom of the berth above. 

The diver who raised the tugboat Bronx 
from the East River found the fireman sit- 
ting in a chair in the fire-room, staring into 
a wave-quenched furnace, with the weird, life- 
like expression often seen in the wide-open 
eyes of the drowned, and which those who 
have encountered it declare never fails to 
strain the nerves of the strongest man. Other 
divers relate even more grewsome experi- 
ences. When the diver, employed to locate 
and examine the steamship City of Chester, 
entered the steerage, the first object that met 
his gaze was the figure of a man standing 
upright, entangled in a pile of ropes. The 
face was terribly distorted and the tongue, 
protruding, hung from the mouth, while the 
body was swollen to twice its natural size. 
Going a little further aft he found another 



196 THE SEA ROVERS 

victim of the wreck, who had fallen on his 
knees and grasped a third man around the 
waist. The spectacle so affected him that 
he signaled to be hauled to the surface, where 
he reported what he had seen, and refused 
to again go below until accompanied by an- 
other diver. 

Captain Abram Onderdonk, already re- 
ferred to, once brought up a dozen bodies 
from the wreck of the steamer Albatross, 
sunk in the Caribbean Sea. Some of these 
were in their staterooms, and the last corpse 
was that of a young woman. He found her 
in the bed lying on her side, her eyes wide 
open and staring straight ahead. One of her 
arms was thrust through the bed slats, with 
the hand clutching the berth frame. As he 
loosened her grasp the body turned, then 
floated to an almost erect position, and leaned 
over toward him with a repelling look. The 
expression of the face and eyes, as well as the 
attitude, almost unmanned him, but in a mo^ 
ment he regained his nerve, clasped her about 
the waist and brought her to the surface. The 



THE DEEP-SEA DIVEE 197 

same diver was employed to bring the dead 
from the wrecked Sound steamer Stonington. 
Groping about one of the staterooms, for he 
had to feel his way in the darkness, his hand 
came in contact with a corpse, which he took 
and carried to the surface. It proved to be 
a woman, and clasped to her bosom so firmly 
that no effort could separate them, was a 
beautiful babe. Perfect peace and rest were 
on their faces, and they had evidently died 
in sleep. Mother and child were buried as 
they were found — together. 



CHAPTER Vin 

THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER 

Heroes, also, are the men who build and tend 
our lighthouses, and there are few finer 
stories than that which tells of the erection of 
Tillamook Eock lighthouse, probably the 
most exposed structure in the world. Tilla- 
mook is a basaltic rock, rising abruptly from 
the deep waters of the Pacific a mile off the 
Oregon coast, and eighteen miles south of the 
mouth of the Columbia River. Projecting to 
seaward, it receives the full force of the storm- 
iest waves of the Pacific, which often break 
with appalling violence on its s umm it, ninety 
feet above the level of the sea, boats being 
able to reach it only when the sea is calm. 

Four workmen in October, 1879, were 
landed on the rock with their tools, fuel, pro- 

198 



THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER 199 

visions, a stove, and canvas for a tent. They 
were in a few days joined by five others, who 
brought with them a small derrick. The fore- 
man of the party lost his life in attempting to 
land, and the lot of the survivors was one of 
great discomfort and constant danger. To 
prevent being blown or washed away, they 
tied the canvas to ring-bolts driven into holes 
drilled in the rocks, and then quarried out a 
nook in which they built a shanty, which they 
also bolted to the rocks. Next a flight of 
steps was quarried up the steep side of the 
cliff, and the work of cutting down and level- 
ing the summit began. 

The weather often compelled a suspension 
of work for days at a time, and in January 
came a tornado which lasted for nearly a 
week. During this storm the shanty of the 
workmen was repeatedly flooded with water 
and their supplies were swept into the sea. 
They were able at the end of a fortnight to 
make those on the mainland acquainted with 
their condition, and fresh supplies were 
passed to them over a line cast from the rocks 



200 THE SEA ROVEBS 

to the deck of a schooner, which had come as 
near as safety would permit. 

When May, 1880, came, the dome of the rock 
had been cut down to a height of eighty-eight 
feet from the surface of the sea, and a spot 
leveled for the lighthouse. A small engine 
and more derricks were now landed, and with 
them came three masons, who in June laid 
the corner-stone of the lighthouse. The 
stones were made ready for laying on the 
mainland, and a fresh supply conveyed to the 
rock whenever the weather would permit. 
First, a square, one-story house for the keep- 
ers was built, and above this was raised a 
tower forty-eight feet high, raising the light 
136 feet above the sea level. Sixteen months 
after work was begun the lamp was lighted 
for the first time, and has since prevented 
scores of wrecks. Over the beacon raised 
amid such difficulties, three keepers stand sen- 
tinel, and their lot is an exciting as well as a 
lonely one. A few winters ago a terrific 
storm broke upon the rock, and the water 
poured in torrents through the holes cut in 



THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER 201 

the dome of the lighthouse to give ventilation 
to the lamps. Stout wire screen shutters pro- 
tected the lantern and broke the force of the 
water hurled against the glass. But for this 
it would have been battered in, and the heavy 
plates might have killed the man attending 
the lamps. 

Tillamook is known in the service and to 
mariners as a light of the first class, since 
lighthouses are roughly divided into three 
classes: First, those on outlying headlands 
and deep-sea rocks, the distinguishing fea- 
tures of a country's coastline, and the first 
to give the mariner warning of his nearness 
to land. The second grade of lights show 
him his way through the secondary shoals and 
rocks, and the third grade, or harbor lights, 
take him safely into port. There are fifty- 
two first-class lights on the coasts of the 
United States. New Jersey and Massachu- 
setts have each a double light; and Florida, 
by reason of the treacherous reefs which girt 
its coast, has as many first-class lights as any 
other two States put together. 



202 THE SEA EOVEES 

A majority of the lights of the first-class 
are housed in tall stone or brick towers, and 
a number of them stand npon very high 
ground. The light on Cape Mendocino glows 
from an eminence of 423 feet above the level 
of the sea, and is visible for twenty-eight 
miles. There are ten other lights whose ele- 
vation averages from 204 to 360 feet above 
sea level, and which are visible from twenty- 
one to twenty-six miles. The light at St. Au- 
gustine, Fla., is a fine example of its class. 
The strong and massive tower of brick rises 
150 feet from the ground, and the light is 
reached by winding stairs. The apparatus 
for the light is twelve feet high and six feet 
through, and the lenses alone cost thousands 
of dollars. A powerful lamp in the centre of 
the apparatus sends its rays in all directions, 
the lenses being arranged at such angles as 
to gather the light and to send it out in par- 
allel rays in the course desired. The cost 
of the St. Augustine lighthouse was $100,000. 

Each lighthouse must have peculiarities of 
its own, so that both by night and by day the 



THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER 203 

mariner can distinguish it from its neighbors, 
and thus guard against the mistakes that 
might otherwise prove fatal. The first re- 
sult desired is accomplished by the use of 
fixe*d, revolving, blended, flash and intermit- 
tent lights, and as the timing of the second 
and the two latter classes is capable of great 
variety, it will be seen that the elasticity of 
the system is ample to meet all possible needs. 
To secure the second result desired the light- 
houses are painted in different colors, and the 
application of the colors is varied in each in- 
stance. Some retain their natural colors, 
while others are painted black and white, or 
red and white; here broad horizontal bands 
alternating, and there slender spiral ones set- 
ting off the background of a sharply contrast- 
ing color. Again, the shape of the houses is 
varied, some being circular and others cone- 
shaped, some tall and others short, some 
square and others octagonal, while in many 
cases the shape and color of the keeper's 
dwelling nearby also help to make distinction 
easy. Thus the character of the light guides 



204 THE SEA EOVEES 

the sailor by night, and by day the form and 
color of the lighthouse give him welcome 
knowledge of his whereabouts. 

The first lighthouses in this country were 
beacons, made by piling up stones, from the 
summit of which "firebales of pitch and 
ocum" were burned in iron baskets at night. 
It is a far cry from that time to this, and the 
construction of the lighthouse of the present 
day is, as has already been shown, a task de- 
manding mechanical skill and engineering 
ability of the first order. A lighthouse on the 
mainland has few difficulties involved in its 
construction, but where the foundation is an 
isolated rock, a submerged reef, or a sandy 
shoal, the best resources of the engineer and 
mechanic are called into full play. 

The lighthouse most difficult to build is that 
on the submerged rock or partly submerged 
rock. Eace Eock Light, in Long Island Sound, 
belongs to this class. Portions of Eace Eock 
are three and others thirteen feet under wa- 
ter. Diving-bells were used to level the foun- 
dations for the lighthouse, and the masonry 



THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER 205 

and concrete under water were laid in the 
same way. The United States has two other 
lighthouses built on submerged rocks, Minot's 
Ledge in Boston harbor, and Spectacle Reef, 
on Lake Huron. The first lighthouse on Minot's 
Ledge was built above stout iron rods driven 
into the rocks. In April, 1851, there was a 
severe gale which lasted five days. On the 
third night of the storm the house was blown 
down and light and keeper went out together. 
Four years later a second structure was be- 
gun, this time with a foundation of masonry 
and concrete. Minot's is barely awash with 
the lowest tide, and so rare were the oppor- 
tunities for work that three years were re- 
quired to prepare the rock for the first course 
of stone, which was laid in 1857. In 1860 the 
structure was completed and has ever since 
stood proof against wind and storm. 

Spectacle Reef lighthouse, near Mackinac, 
was built with the aid of a coffer-dam. A 
large wooden cylinder was constructed by 
banding long staves tightly together and 
towed out to the rock, where it was set up on 



206 THE SEA BOVEBS 

the surface and the stones driven down into 
the uneven places. Then the crevices were 
filled with cement and the water pumped out. 
After this the rock was leveled and the lime- 
stone courses rapidly raised one above an- 
other. Spectacle Eeef light stands eleven 
miles from land, and its base is seven feet un- 
der water. 

Where there is a shifting shoal, whose un- 
stable character no degree of mechanical or 
engineering skill can overcome, resort is had 
to the lightship. The United States has 
twenty-five of these vessels. Seven of them 
are employed off Massachusetts Bay to mark 
the Vineyard and Nantucket shoals, and a line 
of equal number lies along Long Island Sound 
stretching from Brenton's Beef to Sandy 
Hook. Four more are stationed off the New 
Jersey and Delaware coasts, one off Cape 
Charles, three off North Carolina, South Caro- 
lina and Georgia, and two off Louisiana and 
Texas. The life of a lightship crew, as will 
be told in another place, is a laborious and 
often a dangerous one. 



THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER 207 

The United States is divided into sixteen 
lighthouse districts, each one with its inspec- 
tor and engineer. The former, drawn from 
the -navy, inspects the lights under his juris- 
diction at least every three months ; the latter, 
a member of the Corps of Engineers, superin- 
tends the building, removal or renovation of 
the towers. Both are responsible to the 
Lighthouse Board, a body appointed by the 
President and composed of veteran naval offi- 
cers of high rank, who are no longer fitted for 
active duty at sea. 

The station of the third lighthouse district 
is on Staten Island, between St. George and 
Tompkins ville. Here over a hundred men 
are constantly employed and half a million 
dollars annually expended. From this sta- 
tion one hundred and eighty-nine lighthouses 
and beacon lights and seven lightships are 
maintained and supplied, while thirty-six day 
or unlighted beacons, thirteen steam fog sig- 
nals, six electric light buoys, and five hundred 
and seven other buoys are looked after and 



208 THE SEA EOVEES 

kept in repair by the inspector and his 
assistants. 

Fog often obscures the rays of the most 
powerful light, and it is then that the fog 
signal and the whistling bnoy come into play. 
The most effective fog signal is the American 
siren, a steam machine worked under seventy 
pounds pressure, and from which a series of 
noises come forth that can be heard from two 
to four miles. Certain intervals in the sounds 
designate the nearest light and afford a wel- 
come and often much-needed guide to the mar- 
iner enveloped in a cloak of fog. This sys- 
tem of fog signals extends along the entire 
seaboard, extra precautions being taken on 
the Northern Atlantic coast. 

Mineral oil is the principal illuminant used 
in our lighthouses. It is selected with the 
greatest care, and is subjected to three sev- 
eral tests before being accepted. Gas has 
been tried as a lighthouse illuminant, but with 
inferior success, and there are at the present 
time only three lighthouses in which it is used. 
Experiments with electricity have also been 



THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER 209 

only fairly successful, its light blinding in- 
stead of giving aid to the pilot. The light- 
house station on Staten Island is a 
busy place, and much work is done there, but 
the wheels of industry are so well oiled and 
run so smoothly, that a deep peace seems 
always to brood over the establishment. Day 
after day and year after year the work, mov- 
ing in well-marked channels, goes on with 
quiet and certainty. Everywhere the neat- 
ness and order prevail that mark all depart- 
ments of the lighthouse service. 

Indeed, in no branch of the government 
service is stricter discipline and closer atten- 
tion to duty insisted upon than is demanded 
from the brave and devoted men who tend 
our lighthouses. The pay of these keepers 
ranges from $1,000 to $100, the average, by 
an Act of Congress passed some years ago, 
being $600. The Lighthouse Board, which 
controls the service, selects as keepers the best 
men obtainable, preference being always 
given to men who have served for lengthy 
periods in the army and navy. 



210 THE SEA ROVERS 

Members of this class know what discipline 
means, and hard experience has taught them 
that orders are to be obeyed to the letter. 
Many an old veteran, whose scars tell of val- 
iant service in the Civil War or on the West- 
ern frontier, and many an old shipmaster or 
mate, whose weather-beaten face bespeaks 
long years spent on the quarter-deck, as light- 
house keepers now do duty on solitary and 
barren beacon rocks, where for months at a 
time, aside from their own voices and those 
of their families, the roar and moan of the 
ocean, as it beats against the breakers below, 
are the only sounds that are heard. 

The life of the keeper — though many who 
follow it seem wholly contented with it, and 
doubtless would not leave it for any other 
calling — is thus a lonely and arduous one. 
Two breaches of the rules which govern the 
keeper's conduct bring as a penalty immediate 
dismissal from the service. The absence of 
a light for a single moment may bring dis- 
aster to life and property on the seas, and 
neither excuse nor previous good conduct can 



THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER 211 

save from instant dismissal the keeper who 
allows his light to go out. He may plead that 
his wife or child was dying, but he is told 
that he must subordinate his light to nothing. 
And he must not only keep his light burning, 
but stay by it so long as the lighthouse stands. 
Some years ago an ice pack lifted from its 
foundations, overturned and carried away the 
Sharp's Island lighthouse in Chesapeake Bay. 
The two keepers had a staunch boat and could 
have made their way to shore. Instead, they 
bravely chose to remain at their post of duty, 
and for sixteen hours, without food or fire, 
drifted with the wreck at the mercy of the 
ice cakes. When the wreck finally grounded 
the keepers carried ashore all the movable 
portions of the light, the oil, and everything 
else they could take with them. 

At the same time the keepers of another 
light, fearing danger, left their post and went 
ashore. They pleaded that the ice had ren- 
dered the light useless for the time being, but 
this excuse had no weight with their supe- 
riors. They had proven recreant to their trust 



212 THE SEA EOVEES 

and were dismissed from the service, the 
places they had filled being given to the two 
keepers who had refused to leave their post 
of duty, even when to remain seemed certain 
death. Drunkenness, when detected, also 
leads to removal from the service. That and 
allowing one 's light to go out are the two un- 
pardonable sins in the eyes of the lighthouse 
inspector. 

Aside from his duties at night, the keeper 
finds plenty of work to do. Promptly at a 
given hour in the morning the lights must be 
extinguished; and during the day all put in 
order for the coming night. In the lantern 
room the lenses must be kept free from speck 
or tarnish, and the reflectors, the brass rail- 
ings and the gun metal carefully burnished 
and polished to the last degree of brightness. 
The oil tanks must also be filled and the wick 
trimmed. Carelessness or negligence in any 
of these particulars is dangerous, for the 
\ visits of the inspectors are always unan- 
I nounced, and may occur at any moment. 
Most important of all, the lamp must be 



THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER 213 

lighted on time, for a delay of even a few 
minutes will not escape notice. Each keeper 
is required to record the time the lights ap- 
pear in the stations within his range, and 
tardiness in this particular is noted by 
watchful eyes, and at once reported. At in- 
accessible stations, as a rule, from three to 
four keepers are employed. In stormy months, 
when communication with the mainland is im- 
possible, one or more of the keepers may die 
or be disabled, and experience has taught 
that, to insure safety, three men at least must 
be posted at every dangerous station. 

No keeper is allowed to engage in any busi- 
ness which may interfere with his presence 
at the lighthouse. However, there are some 
keepers who work at tailoring,, shoemaking, 
and similar trades ; and there are others who 
are preachers, school-teachers and justices of 
the peace. The keeper whose lighthouse is 
located on land is encouraged to keep a gar- 
den, and a barn is provided for his horses and 
cattle. Until a few years ago many keepers 
greatly increased their incomes by taking 



214 THE SEA ROVERS 

boarders in the summer — life in a lighthouse 
has a strong attraction for those fond of the 
romantic — but the Lighthouse Board finally 
prohibited the renting of quarters to outsid- 
ers in buildings owned and constructed by the 
Government, and this pleasant and conven- 
ient source of revenue was cut off. 

Whenever keepers are located at stations 
where the cost of carriage exceeds the cost of 
fuel and rations, they are furnished at the ex- 
pense of the Government. This applies to 
the keeper of the lighthouse on a big rock near 
Cape Ann. No sea-going vessel can come 
within a quarter of a mile of his home, and it 
is impossible for a loaded boat to reach his 
abiding-place in safety. The coal he uses is 
shipped in bags from Boston to as near the 
lighthouse as the vessel can approach. The 
bags are then loaded into small boats and 
taken to the edge of the shoal water, inside 
of which it is dangerous to enter. From the 
boats the bags are carried ashore on the 
backs of the crew, who wade through the 
shoals, clamber up the rocks with their bur- 




A LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER 



THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER 215 

plens and empty the coal in the lighthouse bin. 
Coal is worth thirty dollars a ton at Cape Ann 
lighthouse. The keeper's other bulky sup- 
plies are delivered in the same manner as his 
coal. 

At all the lighthouses built on rocks and 
ledges the keepers have to be supplied with 
fresh water from the mainland, that collected 
from rains in cisterns and tanks being gener- 
ally insufficient for their needs. Each light- 
house keeper is supplied by the Government 
with a well-selected library of fifty volumes. 
There are Hive hundred and fifty of these li- 
braries, and they are continually kept mov- 
ing from station to station, the inspector, 
when he makes his quarterly visit, bringing 
a fresh library, and taking the old one with 
him, to his next stopping-place. 

Captain Oliver Brooks, now living in hon- 
ored and well-earned retirement, besides be- 
ing for thirty years keeper of the great light 
on Faulkner's Island, iive miles off the Con- 
necticut coast in Long Island Sound, was also 
one of the most remarkable men ever con- 



216 THE SEA KOVEBS 

nected with the lighthouse service. He had 
been a sea captain before he became a light- 
house keeper and was a man of signal me- 
chanical skill and marked inventive genius. 
His knowledge of electricity, and of light and 
sound was thorough and exact, and the re- 
sults of many of his experiments, adopted by 
the Lighthouse Board, have contributed 
greatly to the improvement of the service. 
All the apparatus with which he conducted his 
experiments was constructed by him in a lit- 
tle workshop he had fitted up in the lighthouse 
, tower. 

But his fondness for the theoretical never 
caused him to neglect in the slightest detail 
the practical side of his work, and he was, in- 
deed, a model keeper. Faulkner's Island 
lies directly in the path of all vessels passing 
either in or out of the Sound, and its light 
is one of the most important ones on our 
coasts, but there has not been a night in more 
than a hundred years that it has not flashed 
out its warning to sailors. The island was a 
barren and desolate spot when Captain Brooks 



THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER 217 

settled there, but lie and his family turned it 
into a paradise. All of his large family of 
boys and girls were born there, and there 
grew up to sturdy manhood and splendid 
womanhood. One daughter was an author- 
ity on ornithology; another, a gifted water- 
color artist, and every one of the children was 
a skilled musician, their family concerts, in 
which not less than five different instruments 
were brought into play, being treats to hear. 
All of the children had noble records as life- 
savers, and many were the men, women and 
children they saved from death in the 
treacherous waters surrounding their island 
home. It was not until his youngest child 
had left the island that the captain gave up 
his place as keeper to spend his last days on 
shore. 

Even better known than Captain Brooks is 
the keeper of Lime Bock light in Newport 
harbor. Should you chance to be in Newport 
on some pleasant summer afternoon, walk out 
on the long wharf that runs from the main- 
land into the west side of the harbor, and 



218 THE SEA ROVERS 

when you have reached its end, wave your 
handkerchief toward the lighthouse opposite. 
Soon a woman will appear in the door of the 
tall gray tower, and running down to the 
boat moored to the stone wall, step into it, 
take the oars, and with graceful yet powerful 
strokes, pull rapidly toward the wharf. As 
she approaches her erect back and evident 
strength give the impression of youth, but as 
she turns the boat about to receive you for 
a visit to the lighthouse you discover to your 
surprise that she is a woman of middle age. 

Your hostess is Ida Lewis, keeper of Lime 
Rock light and famous as the American Grace 
Darling, a modest and kindly hearted hero- 
ine, whose skill and daring have saved nearly 
as many lives as there are years in her own. 
In fact, it was due in part to her record as a 
life-saver, that she was given the place she 
now fills. Besides attending to her duties as 
keeper, there are other cares that keep her 
busy; she is a careful housewife, keeps 
abreast of current literature; and is a de- 
voted churchwoman, spending her Sundays on 



THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER 219 

shore whenever possible. To her credit, no 
light in her district is as regularly or per- 
fectly attended to, nor does any other gain 
from the inspector so high a report as Lime 
Eock light. 

There are several other women light-keep- 
ers, but none of them has ever had to face 
an experience as trying as that which a few 
years ago befell the wife of Angus Campbell, 
keeper of the light on Great Bird Rock, a 
lonely islet in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and 
the farthest beacon to the harbors of Nova 
Scotia. When the late fall comes and the 
tardy fishermen hasten away to the mainland, 
the gulf turns to ice and hems the rock in 
with a clutch that only the returning summer 
can loosen. There, in the autumn of 1896, 
Angus Campbell took his newly wedded wife 
to share his loneliness. During the winter 
James Duncan and George Bryson, two of 
Campbell's friends, journeyed to Great Bird 
Rock to remain until spring. They were pro- 
fessional seal hunters, and a great many seals 



220 THE SEA EOVEKS 

play around on the ice and rocks at the foot 
of the big cliff. 

The men landed on the rock early in Feb- 
ruary. At that time there was no open water 
within live or six miles of the lighthouse in 
any direction. The men were landed on the 
ice and made their way up to where Campbell 
was waiting for them. On February 27, 
Campbell and his visitors left the rock to go 
in pursuit of the seals they had noticed on the 
ice the day before. His wife saw them start 
across the ice and then returned to her house- 
hold duties. They had not been gone more 
than four hours, when the wind, which had 
been growing colder and blowing steadily 
from the eastward, shifted to the southwest. 
The southwest wind is the agency that dashes 
the ice fields against the cliff and breaks them 
up. She thought that the men, being so much 
lower, might not have noticed the wind, and 
she hoisted the danger signal. They must 
have seen it, for she soon caught sight of them 
hurrying over the ice toward the rock. 

They were within gunshot of the light- 



THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER 221 

house, when the ice cracked with a sound like 
thunder, and a long, blue line appeared, run- 
ning east and west, parallel with the light- 
house rock and with North Bird Rock, about 
five miles to the westward. The big crack 
'was followed by a general splitting up of the 
ice floe. She saw the men standing just the 
other side of the open water. She saw her 
husband wave his hands at her and she waved 
back. Then the darkness came, like a great 
blanket dropped from the wintry skies, and 
men and ice were blotted from her vision. But 
even in her sore distress she did not forget 
the duty incumbent on the lighthouse keeper. 
She clambered up into the lantern and lighted 
the great oil lamp, saw that it was filled, and 
attended to the other duties she had seen her 
husband perform. • 

Morning, when it came, gave no glimpse of 
her husband and his companions, nor did the 
third or the fourth day bring them back to 
her. xlf ter that the days grew into weeks, 
and the worse than widowed woman found 
herself confined to lonely and racking impris- 



222 THE SEA EOVERS 

onment on the ice-locked rock. But not for a 
single night did she fail to fill and light the 
lamp that had been her hapless husband's 
charge. When the Government steamer 
touched at Great Bird Bock, on May 5, 1897, 
the captain looked long and earnestly at the 
lighthouse perched far above him, and won- 
dered why there was not the customary greet- 
ing. He saw no sign of life. There was the 
derrick rope swinging in the wind, but no 
moving figures at the top of the cliff, as there 
were wont to be. 

Closely scanning the rock, he saw at last a 
white, gaunt face at the window. In a little 
while a thin, tottering figure crept to the brow 
of the ledge, but it was some minutes before 
the tender's captain could recognize in that 
wasted being the comely woman whom he had 
known as Angus Campbell 's wife. 

" Where is your husband?" he shouted. 

" Angus is dead," came the answer, in a 
faint, palsied voice, "and so are Jim Dun- 
can and George Bryson." 

An instant later the captain had swung 



THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER 223 

himself into the derrick ropes and was mak- 
ing his way up the rocks. When he reached 
the woman she burst into tears and fell at his 
feet. Calmed at last, she told her story. 

"How did you stand it?" asked the captain 
when she had. finished. 

"God knows," was the reply. "I knew I 
had to keep that light burning, and that I 
think kept me alive. That was all I had to 
do, except watch the sea through my hus- 
band's glass. I got up night after night, and 
I do not think I ever slept two hours at a 
time. There were plenty of provisions, but 
I could not eat more than one meal a day, and 
sometimes I did not eat that. I had some 
hope on the morning after the boys were car- 
ried out on the ice floe, that they might be in 
sight and might be saved some way. But that 
morning there was nothing to be seen but 
water and ice. Then hope was gone. I 
knew there was nothing to do but wait for 
the spring. And I have done it. Every day 
I have swept the horizon with the aid of the 
glasses. It was merely a formality, after a 



224 THE SEA ROVERS 

while, but I kept on doing it. I do not know 
why. At last life got to be like being buried 
alive. I had no interest in living. I had no 
appetite, no thought of sleep. In all the time 
I do not suppose I have slept two hours in 
succession, nor at any time eaten more than 
one scanty meal a day. I was going crazy, 
and should have killed myself or died of star- 
vation in another week." 

A few days later Mrs. Campbell was re- 
moved from the rock to her former home in 
Prince Edward Island. 

Many of the most picturesque lighthouses 
in the United States establishment are on the 
rocks and islands off the coast of Maine. 
Notable for its beauty is the one on Matinicus 
Rock. The first lighthouse thereon, erected 
in 1827, was a cobblestone dwelling with a 
wooden tower at each end. Twenty years later 
this was replaced by a granite dwelling with 
semicircular towers, which has since devel- 
oped into an establishment requiring the 
services of a keeper and three assistants. 
Matinicus Rock rises fifty feet above the sea, 



THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER 225 

and presents what seems a precipitous front 
to the ocean, but there is no more rugged, dan- 
gerous coast along the seaboard of Maine 
than here, and when a gale rages the waves 
pound the rock as if bent upon washing it 
away, the thunder of the green-gray wall 
that beats against it, sounding, at such times, 
like the cannonade of a hundred heavy guns. 
Life on Matinicus for years past has been a 
never ending struggle between man and the 
elements, and this lends peculiar interest to 
the history of the light and its watchers, bound 
up with which is a love story at once tender, 
wholesome, and true. Captain Burgess, 
keeper of the rock from 1853 to 1861, had a 
daughter Abby, a maiden as comely as she 
was brave, whom he often left in charge of 
the lights while he crossed to Matinicus Is- 
land. On one occasion rough weather for 
three weeks barred his return to the rock, and 
during all that time, Abby, then a girl of sev- 
enteen, not only tended the lights, but cared 
for her invalid mother and her younger bro- 
thers and sisters. 



226 THE SEA KOVERS 

In 1861 Captain Grant succeeded Captain 
Burgess on Matinicus, taking" his son with 
him as assistant. The old keeper left Abby 
on the rock to instruct the newcomers in their 
duties, and she performed the task so well 
that young Grant fell in love with her, and 
asked her to become his wife. Soon after 
their marriage she was appointed an assistant 
keeper. A few years later the husband was 
made keeper and the wife assistant keeper of 
White Head, another light on the Maine coast. 
There they remained until the spring of 1890, 
when they removed to Middleborough, Mass., 
intending to pass the balance of their days 
beyond sight and hearing of the rocks and the 
waves. But the hunger which the sea breeds 
in its adopted children was still strong within 
them, and the fall of 1892 found them again 
on the coast of Maine, this time at Portland, 
where the husband again entered the light- 
house establishment, working in the engi- 
neers' department of the first lighthouse dis- 
trict. With them until his death lived Cap- 
tain Grant, who in the closing months of 1890, 



THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER 227 

being then aged eighty-five, retired from the 
position of keeper of Matinicus light, which 
he had held for nearly thirty years. 

Not less lonely, hut far more perilous than 
the life of the keepers of a light like that on 
Matinicus is the lot of the crew of the South 
Shoal lightship, whose position twenty-six 
miles off Sankaty Head, Nantucket Island, 
makes it the most exposed light-station in the 
world. Anchored so far out at sea, it is only 
during the months of summer and autumn 
that the lighthouse tender ventures to visit it, 
and its crew from December to May of each 
year are wholly cut off from communication 
with the land. It is this, however, that makes 
the South Shoal lightship a veritable protec- 
ing angel of the deep, for it stands guard not 
only over the treacherous New South Shoal, 
near which it is anchored, but over twenty- 
six miles of rips and reefs between it and 
the Nantucket shore — a wide-reaching ocean 
graveyard, where bleach the bones of more 
than a half thousand wrecked and forgotten 
vessels. 



228 THE SEA ROVERS 

The lightship is a stanchly built two-hulled 
schooner of 275 tons burden, 103 feet long 
over all, equipped with fore-and-aft lantern 
masts 71 feet high, and with two masts for 
sails, each 42 feet high. The lanterns are oc- 
tagons of glass in copper frames, so arranged 
that they can be lowered into houses built 
around the masts. In the forward part of the 
ship is a huge fog bell, swung ten feet above 
the deck, which, when foggy weather prevails, 
as it frequently does for weeks at a time, is 
kept tolling day and night. A two-inch chain 
fastened to a "mushroom' ' anchor weighing 
upward of three tons holds the vessel in eight- 
een fathoms of water, but this, so fiercely do 
the waves beat against it in winter, has not 
prevented her from going adrift many times. 
She was two weeks at sea on one of these oc- 
casions, and on another she came to anchor 
in New York Harbor. Life on the South 
Shoal lightship is at all times a hard and try- 
ing one, and, as a matter of fact, the crew 
are instructed not to expose themselves to 
danger outside their special line of duty. 



THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER 229 

This, however, does not deter them from fre- 
quently risking their lives in rescuing others, 
and when, several years ago, the City of New- 
castle went ashore on one of the shoals near 
the lightship, all hands, twenty-seven in num- 
ber, were saved by the South Shoal crew and 
kept aboard of her over two weeks, until the 
story of the wreck was signalled to a passing 
vessel. 

Nor are the South Shoal crew alone among 
lighthouse keepers in displays of heroism out- 
side the duties required of them. Isaac H. 
Grant holds a silver medal given him by the 
Government for rescuing two men from 
drowning while he was keeper at White Head ; 
and Keeper Marcus Hanna, of the Cape Eliz- 
abeth station, Maine, received a gold medal 
for the daring rescue of two sailors from a 
wreck during a severe storm, while Frederick 
Hatch, keeper of the Breakwater station at 
Cleveland was awarded the gold bar. The 
last mentioned badge of honor is granted only 
to one who has twice distinguished himself by 
a special act of bravery. It was given Hatch 



230 THE SEA ROVERS 

in the winter of 1898. A wreck occurred at 
night, just outside the breakwater. The eight 
people aboard made their way to the break- 
water pier, but the heavy seas swept several 
of them back, and one lost his life. Pulling 
to the pier in a small boat, Keeper Hatch took 
off the captain's wife; but she was hardly in 
the boat before it was swamped and capsized. 
The woman was utterly exhausted and almost 
a dead weight; but though nearly overcome 
himself, Hatch, at the risk of his life, main- 
tained his hold upon her until he could reach 
a line thrown from the light-station, with 
which he and his helpless burden were drawn 
to the lighthouse steps. Before that, and 
while a member of the life-saving crew at 
Cleveland, Hatch had helped to rescue twenty- 
nine persons from two vessels on two suc- 
cessive days during a terrific gale. 



CHAPTEE IX 

LIFE-SAVING ALONG SHORE 

With each recurring autumn at nearly 300 
points on our 8,000 miles of seacoast, careful 
preparations begin for the winter campaign 
of the life-saving service. Conducted in the 
face of constant peril and hardship, this an- 
nual battle with disaster, storm and death is 
a peaceful, yet always glorious one. During 
the year 1905 alone it resulted in the saving 
of more than 4,000 lives and the rescue of 
nearly $8,000,000 worth of property, imper- 
illed by wreck and storm, all of which would 
otherwise have been lost. The United States 
Life-saving Service is now the most complete 
and effective organization of its kind in the 
world, furnishing a model and pattern for 
those of other countries. The story of its 

231 



232 THE SEA ROVERS 

rapid development during the last thirty-five 
years is also the inspiring record of the life 
work of one of our most sagacious and de- 
voted public servants, Sumner I. Kimball, a 
modest, blue-eyed, kindly-faced man of mid- 
dle age, whose untiring labors in this field 
long since gave him a foremost place among 
the great benefactors of his time. 

When in 1871, Mr. Kimball was made Chief 
of the Eevenue Marine Bureau of the Treas- 
ury Department, the live-saving service had 
slender existence, save on paper. He found 
the station-houses sadly neglected and dilap- 
idated, the apparatus rusty or broken, and 
many of the salaried keepers disabled by age 
or incompetent and neglectful of their duties. 
The outlook would have discouraged a man 
less resolute and determined than the new 
chief, but he had conceived the splendid idea 
of guarding the entire coast of the nation with 
a chain of fortresses garrisoned by disci- 
plined conquerors of the sea, and he set about 
the accomplishment of his self-imposed task 
with patience, sagacity and skill. 



LIFE-SAVING ALONG SHOEE 233 

He reorganized the service and prepared a 
code of regulations for its control, in which 
the duties of every member were carefully de- 
fined. Politics, the bane of the service in 
former years, was rigidly eliminated. Lazy, 
careless and incompetent employees were 
promptly dismissed, and their places filled 
with capable and faithful surfmen. The sta- 
tion-houses were repaired and increased, and 
equipped with the best life-saving devices hu- 
man skill and ingenuity had thus far brought 
forth. Last and most important of all, a 
thorough and effective system of inspection 
and patrol was inaugurated, and so successful 
did it prove that during the first year's oper- 
ation of the new system every person imper- 
illed by shipwreck was saved. The service 
has been wisely extended from year to year, 
until now it has 270 stations, three-fourths of 
which are along the Atlantic coast, while oth- 
ers are on the lakes ; a board of life-saving ap- 
pliances; telephone lines for prompt opera- 
tions and a splendid corps of assistant 
superintendents, experts, inspectors, station- 



234 THE SEA KOVEBS 

keepers and mariners. The yearly cost of the 
service at the present time is slightly less 
than $1,800,000, a sum ridiculously small 
when the saving of life and property is taken 
into consideration. 

Life at a life-saving station is never an 
idle one. The routine followed at the Avalon, 
New Jersey station, as I have observed it, in 
essential details, is the same as that prac- 
ticed at all of the stations of the service. 
Four days of every week are devoted to drill. 
On Tuesdays the keeper orders out the surf- 
boat and drills the crew in riding breakers 
and landing through heavy surf. On Wednes- 
day he gives the men practical instruction in 
the working of the international signal code. 
On Thursday the Lyle gun is ordered out, and 
one of the crew, taking up a position some 
distance down the shore near a post stuck in 
the sand, personates a seaman on a stranded 
vessel. The other members of the crew plant 
the gun and fire a line which the watcher pulls 
in and rigs to the post. Then the men at the 
other end of the line dispatch the breeches- 



LIFE-SAVING ALONG SHOKE 235 

buoy and gallantly effect the rescue of their 
comrade. On Friday the recovery drill is 
carefully gone through. One of the crew as- 
sumes the role of a half-drowned sailor, and 
his comrades resuscitate him by rolling him 
£>n the sand and producing artificial breath- 
ing, according to the rules laid down for the 
purpose. Saturday is general cleaning day. 
The discipline of the crew is never relaxed 
and none of its members can go out of sight 
of the station save by special permission or 
when off duty. 

The night hours at a life-saving station af- 
ford a much more thrilling story than the 
one I have just been relating. Each crew is 
divided into three night watches. The first 
watch goes on duty at sundown and patrols 
the beach until eight o'clock, at which hour 
the second watch relieves it and patrols until 
midnight, when the third watch sallies out and 
does duty until four o'clock in the morning. 
Then the first watch again goes on patrol and 
keeps watch until sunrise. During the day 
a surfman is constantly on the lookout in the 



236 THE SEA ROVERS 

watch-tower of the station. If the weather 
be clear, this precaution suffices, but if it is 
cloudy and storms threaten, the beach patrols 
are continued through the day. Each watch 
consists of two men, who, upon leaving the 
station, separate and follow their beats to the 
right and left until they meet the patrolmen 
from the neighboring stations on either side, 
with whom they exchange checks — this to show 
the keeper they have covered their respective 
beats. On the Atlantic seaboard, stations 
are now within an average distance of five 
miles of each other, but often the beats of the 
surfmen are six and seven miles long. It is a 
part of the surf man's duties to keep a con- 
stant watch of the sea and to note the vessels 
by the lights displayed, and, if they approach 
too close to the shore or outlying sandbars, 
give them timely warning. For this purpose 
he always carries a Cost on signal, which, 
when exploded by percussion, emits a red 
flame that flashes far out over the water and 
warns the unwary ship of its peril. Last 
year more than two hundred vessels, warned 



LIFE-SAVING ALONG SHORE 237 

in this way, at once changed course and ran 
out of danger. If the surfman observes a 
vessel that is stationary, he must determine 
whether she is at anchor or in distress, and if 
the latter proves to be the case, he displays 
his Coston signal, to assure the shipwrecked 
that aid is close at hand, and then hastens to 
the station to give the alarm to the keeper. 

The work of the patrolmen involves fre- 
quent danger and almost constant hardship. 
Imagine, if you can, and that is impossible, 
the lot of a surfman on the Jersey coast dur- 
ing one of the great storms sure to occur once 
or twice in every winter. A fearful night 
has followed a stormy and lowering day. 
Inky darkness shrouds sea and land, and 
the wind, blowing at the rate of fifty miles 
an hour, pipes and roars defiance to the pa- 
trolmen as they struggle along their lonely 
beats. The driving snow freezes on their 
cheeks and chins ; wet sand is flung into their 
faces and cuts with the keenness of a razor, 
while great masses of icy foam beat fiercely 
on the head and face and body at every dozen 



238 THE SEA ROVERS 

steps. Huge waves break at the foot of the 
sand dunes along which they painfully labor, 
and drench them again and again, often fell- 
ing them to the ground. Every twenty or 
thirty yards they pause, and, baring their 
faces to the pelting snow and foam, search the 
ocean for lights. In this way hours pass 
before the prescribed beat is traversed, and 
the surfmen, wet, half -frozen, bruised and ex- 
hausted, seek for a brief season the warmth 
and shelter of the station-house. Sometimes 
weakness overcomes them and they are un- 
able to reach this refuge. 

When the patrolman descries a vessel 
among the breakers, he displays his Coston 
signal, to give assurance that aid is at hand, 
and then hurries to the station and arouses 
his comrades. From the report of the patrol- 
man the keeper makes quick decision as to the 
best methods to be employed in effecting a 
rescue. If the surfboat is to be used, the 
doors of the boat-room are instantly thrown 
open and the boat-carriage drawn out and 
hauled by the crew to a point opposite the 



LIFE-SAVING ALONG SHORE 239 

wreck. Then the boat is launched and the 
surfmen depart npon their errand of mercy. 
The surfboat is usually of cedar, with white 
oak frame, without keel, and provided with 
air cases, which render it insubmergible. Com- 
paratively light, it can be hauled long dis- 
tances, and is the only boat that has been 
found suitable for launching from flat beaches 
through the shoaling waters of the Atlantic 
and Gulf coasts. Handled by expert oars- 
men, its action is often marvelous, and, al- 
though easily capsized, there are few recorded 
instances of its having been upset with fatal 
results while passing through the surf. Often 
repeated attempts have to be made before a 
wreck can be reached, and even then the great- 
est care must be exercised to avoid collision 
with the plunging hull or injury from floating 
wreckage and falling spars. When the be- 
numbed and exhausted crew and passengers, 
who have usually sought refuge in the rigging 
from the overwhe]ming seas, have been taken 
off, the difficult return to shore yet remains. 
Sometimes the boat is run in behind a roller, 



240 THE SEA EOVEES 

and by quick and clever work kept out of the 
way of the following one, and the shore is 
gained in safety. At other times the boat 
is backed in, the oars being used now and 
then to keep it upon its course, and again, 
when the sea is unusually high, a drag is em- 
ployed to check the force of the incoming 
breakers and prevent the boat from being 
capsized. In the manner described, boat and 
crew make repeated trips through the break- 
ers until all have been taken off the stranded 
vessel, and the work of rescue is at last 
completed. 

When the condition of the sea prevents the 
use of the surfboat the mortar cart, equipped 
with a small bronze, smooth-bore gun, named 
for the inventor, Captain Lyle, of the army, 
is ordered out. Its destination reached, the 
gun is placed in position and loaded by mem- 
bers of the crew trained to the work, while 
others adjust the shot-line box, arrange the 
hauling lines and hawser, connect the 
breeches-buoy, prepare the tackles for haul- 
ing, and with pick and spade dig a trench for 



LIFE-SAVING ALONG SHORE 241 

the sand-anchor. With these preparations 
completed, comes the firing of the gun. The 
shot speeds over the wreck and into the sea 
beyond, while the crew of the imperilled ves- 
sel seize and make fast the line attached. The 
surf men next attach to the short-line the whip 
(an endless line), the tail-block and tally- 
board, and these are in turn hauled in by the 
sailors. And then by means of the whip, the 
surfmen dispatch the hawser and a second 
tallyboard, which directs how and where the 
end of the hawser shall be fastened to the 
wreck. When the tackle connecting the sand 
anchor and the shore end of the hawser is 
straight and taut, it is lifted several feet in 
the air and further tightened by the erection 
of a wooden crotch, which does duty as a tem- 
porary pier, while the wreck answers for an- 
other. Finally the breeches-buoy is drawn 
back and forth on the hawser, and the ship- 
wrecked brought safely to shore. On this 
occasion there have been no delays, but at 
other times there are numerous obstacles to 
be overcome. The ropes may snarl or tangle 



242 THE SEA EOVERS 

or be snapped asunder by the rolling of the 
vessel, and again, the imperilled crew may 
perform their share of the work in a bungling 
manner, or unexpected accidents befall, which 
tax to the utmost the patience, resources and 
courage of the surfmen. In many cases peo- 
ple held suspended in the breakers or en- 
snarled in the floating cordage and debris of 
the vessel, have only been rescued by the most 
daring exploits of the surfmen, who, at the 
greatest risk of life and limb, have worked 
their way through the surf, released the help- 
less victims of the wreck, and brought them 
to shore. 

The breeches-buoy, to which reference has 
been made, is a circular life-preserver of cork, 
to which short canvas breeches are attached, 
and will hold two persons. But when a large 
number of people are to be rescued, the life- 
car, invented by Joseph Francis and con- 
nected with the hawser by a simple device to 
prevent it from drifting, is used. This is a 
water-tight, covered boat of galvanized sheet 
iron and will carry five or six adults at a 




A LIFE-SAVER ON PATROL 



LIFE-SAVING ALONG SHORE 243 

time. At its first trial more than two hun- 
dred persons- were rescued from the wreck of 
the Ayrshire on the New Jersey coast, when 
no other means could have availed. Silks, 
jewels and other valuables have often been 
saved by its use and from one vessel the car 
took ashore a large sum of gold bullion be- 
longing to the United States, together with 
the mails. On the lake and Pacific coasts, 
where the shores are steep and the water 
deep, the self-righting and self-bailing life- 
boat is in general use. This, the best life- 
boat yet devised, is the result of more than 
a century of study and experiment, following 
the first model designed in 1780 by an Eng- 
lish coachman, Lionel Lukin. It possesses 
great stability, is rarely upset, and when this 
happens instantly rights itself, while when 
full of water it empties itself in from fifteen 
to twenty seconds. 

The work of the life-savers seldom ends 
with the rescue. After all have been brought 
ashore from a wreck, the benumbed and help- 
less sufferers are quickly conveyed to the sta- 



244 THE SEA EOVERS 

tion-house, transferred for the moment into a 
hospital, where an abundance of dry clothing 
is instantly applied; the prostrated ones put 
to bed; lint, plasters and bandages supplied 
to the bruised and wounded, and stimulants 
from the medicine chest, never absent from 
any station, given to those who need them. 
At the same time the mess-cook prepares and 
serves out hot coffee alike to rescued and res- 
cuers. When this has been partaken of, the 
keeper assigns a portion of the crew to look 
after the needs of the strangers and the oth- 
ers retire to rest until called to relieve the 
patrol. > 

After what has been written one would ex- 
pect to find rich material for true stories of 
peril, adventure and heroism; and for ro- 
mances in real life among the records of the 
life-saving service — stories that never fail to 
stir the blood and quicken the pulse of those 
to whom they are told. And such is the case. 
The annals of the service are replete with 
splendid deeds of daring, and each month's 
record adds to the roll of honor. Often the 



LIFE-SAVING ALONG SHORE 245 

surf men know they are going forth to almost 
certain death/ and yet never a moment do they 
falter. A year or so ago a crew that res- 
cued four sailors from a stranded vessel un- 
der the most trying conditions, before launch- 
ing their boat, left their slender effects in 
the charge of a comrade for the benefit of 
their families — not one of them believing that 
they would return alive! And when the life- 
savers went off through the violent sea to res- 
cue those on board the German ship Eliza- 
beth, stranded on the Virginia coast, in Jan- 
uary, 1887, all but two of the crew perished, 
together with the entire ship 's company. The 
brave fellows ' doom was sealed from the first, 
but this did not swerve them from their duty. 
One of the saddest chapters in the annals of 
the service deals with the death of the keeper 
and two of the surfmen of the Peaked Hill 
Bar Station, on the Massachusetts coast. In 
the waning hours of a stormy November 
night, fifteen years ago, the sloop Trum- 
bull was descried by the patrol on the inner 
bar, and a few moments later the lifeboat, 



246 THE SEA EOVEES 

manned by Keeper Atkins and Surfmen 
Mayo, Taylor, Kelly, Young and Fisher, was 
on the way to the rescue. The crew, save 
two who, refusing assistance, remained on 
board the vessel, were speedily brought to 
land. The gale was now increasing and the 
sea running mountain high, but Keeper At- 
kins and his crew again essayed the rescue 
of the two men, who still remained on the 
Trumbull. It was very dark, and the life- 
boat in approaching the ship was struck by a 
swinging boom and capsized. After clinging 
for a time to the upturned boat, the surfmen 
released their hold and attempted to swim to 
shore. Surfmen Kelly, Young and Fisher 
reached the beach barely alive, and were 
picked up and tenderly cared for by a com- 
rade, but Keeper Atkins and Surfmen Mayo 
and Taylor, although strong swimmers, were 
finally overcome and vanished in the storm 
and darkness. The sea gave up their bodies 
many hours later, and there were few dry 
eyes among the hundreds who followed to 



LIFE-SAVING ALONG SHORE 247 

their graves three heroes as dauntless as ever 
were sung in song or story. 

One of the most gallant rescues performed 
within the scope of the service stands to the 
credit of the Dam Neck Mills crew, on the 
coast of Virginia. The schooner Jennie Hall, 
bound from Trinidad to Baltimore, sailing 
in a dense fog, struck bottom a few miles 
south of Cape Henry. A tempest was blow- 
ing, and a deluge of sleet blinded and be- 
numbed the crew as they clung to the mizzen- 
mast, on which they had taken refuge. The 
captain had been swept away while attempt- 
ing to cross the deck, and it seemed certain 
that the almost helpless sailors must soon fol- 
low him. Blind desperation alone gave them 
strength to endure until the morning. Then, 
in the dawning of the day, through the lifting 
curtain of mist, they saw the life-savers pre- 
paring to attempt their rescue. The sea was 
still too high to warrant the launching of the 
lifeboat. What must be done was to get a 
hawser to the schooner, and then, by means 



248 THE SEA KOVERS 

of the breeches-buoy, haul off the wrecked 
men. 

The gun was, therefore, placed in position, 
and the shot-line coiled properly, so as to fol- 
low without fouling. The ship was about three 
hundred yards off shore. The shot was 
fired, and the line carried just over the rig- 
ging at the necessary spot. All would have 
gone well had not the block of the whip-line 
become fouled. The men on the mast were 
too exhausted to extricate it, so the whip-line 
was hauled to shore, and the shot-line cut 
away. Another shot was fired. This time it 
landed out of the reach of the wrecked men, 
now almost insensible from cold and exhaus- 
tion. Still another shot was fired, this time 
fairly in the hands of the unfortunates. The 
whip-line was painfully drawn to the mast 
and properly made fast. Then the hawser 
was drawn slowly from shore, and also prop- 
erly fixed around the mast. Just as the 
breeches-buoy was being sent out to make the 
rescue at last, just as safety and warmth and 
life were within their grasp, two of the six 



LIFE-SAVING ALONG SHOEE 249 

fell to the deck, struck like lead, and were 
washed overboard, never more to be seen. 
The breeches-buoy had now reached the mast. 
Two of the men managed to get in, and were 
hauled ashore, unconscious, very nearly dead. 
Again the buoy went on its errand of mercy, 
and the mate was brought to safety. There 
was still one man left on the mast. The buoy 
was sent back for him. But he made no sign 
of life. 

Somebody must go out for him. A surf- 
man by the name of O'Neal put himself in 
the buoy and was hauled to the wreck. He 
found that the man, now unconscious, had so 
firmly lashed himself to the crosstrees that it 
was not in his power to extricate him without 
help. So he returned to the shore for an as- 
sistant. An ex-surfman, Drinkwater by 
name, volunteered to go back with him. The 
sea having gone down a trifle, the keeper de- 
cided to place them on board the wreck by the 
lifeboat. A crew was called, and the res- 
cuers rowed out through a still tremendous 
sea to the Jennie Hall. The two men skil- 



250 THE SEA KOVERS 

fully got aboard, and climbed the mast, the 
lifeboat in the meanwhile, after nearly a fatal 
accident, returning to the beach. Even with 
help, 'Neal had great difficulty in getting the 
remaining sailor out of the rigging. But it 
was finally done, and the well-nigh frozen man 
sent ashore. Then the two life-savers re- 
turned in the buoy. 

The records of the live-saving crews of the 
Great Lakes also abound with thrilling and 
heroic incidents. These vast inland seas, with 
2,500 miles of American coast-line, are sub- 
ject to sudden and violent gales, in which an- 
chored vessels are swept fore and aft, often 
causing their total destruction, while others 
seeking shelter in harbors are driven help- 
lessly upon jutting piers or the still more dan- 
gerous beach ; and frequently just before win- 
ter suspends navigation on the lakes, a single 
life-saving crew is employed upon several 
wrecks at a time. Again, the lifeboats often 
go under sail and oar many miles from their 
station to aid vessels in distress. When the 
steamer Bestchey was wrecked near Grind- 



LIFE-SAVING ALONG SHORE 251 

stone City, seven miles from the Point aux 
Barques station, on Lake Huron, a few years 
ago, the crew hurried to the rescue, and found 
several hundred people watching the breaking 
up of the wreck, but powerless to aid the pas- 
sengers and crew, who, for ten hours, had 
been face to face with suffering and death. 
When the lifeboat had been launched and the 
ship 's side gained, two of the surfmen leaped 
into the water, and by the aid of ropes, after 
a desperate struggle gained the steamer's 
deck and directed the difficult and dangerous 
task of transferring those on board to the 
boat. Eleven women and a small boy were 
lowered over the bulwarks, and the boat, shov- 
ing off, gained the pier in safety. Four trips 
were made within an hour, and all on board, 
more than forty persons, brought ashore. A 
few months later the Point aux Barques crew 
responded to signals of distress displayed by 
a vessel three miles away, and in the fearful 
storm that was raging, their boat was cap- 
sized. The men tried to cling to it, but the 
cold overcame them, and one after another 



252 THE SEA ROVERS 

perished until six were gone. Only the 
keeper, bruised and insensible, was washed 
ashore, and he was so badly injured that he 
was forced to resign his position. Thus in 
one day, the service lost all the members of 
one of its most skilful and gallant crews. Dur- 
ing the same year the men at the Point aux 
Barques Station had been the means of saving 
more than a hundred lives. 

Still the life of the surfmen has its merry, 
as well as its serious moods. Each station is 
provided with a small but well selected li- 
brary, and the men find it a constant source 
of instruction and delight. Then there is al- 
ways in every crew one or two who can play a 
violin, flute or accordion, and often when the 
weather is fine and the wind off shore, the 
surfmen gather in the messroom and listen to 
the music of their companions or sing songs 
and spin yarns, the latter couched in a quaint 
and awkward vernacular, yet full of life and 
spirit, and redolent of the sea and the waves. 
Often on clear, moonlit nights there are ' ' sur- 
prise parties ' ' at the station, made up of the 



LIFE-SAVING ALONG SHORE 253 

wives, sisters' and sweethearts of the crew, 
who always bring with them a generous store 
of household dainties for those they love, sure 
to prove a welcome addition to the surf men's 
plain, but substantial fare. On such occa- 
sions the boat-room is quickly cleared for the 
dance, and joy and merriment hold unfettered 
sway. And, yet, never is the patrol relaxed, 
nor do the surfmen forget the stern call to 
duty that may come to them at any moment. 
"When I see a man clinging to a wreck,' ' said 
a sturdy surf man, not long ago, "I see noth- 
ing else in the world, nor think of family and 
friends until I have saved him." And it is 
but simple truth to say that this heroic spirit 
animates every member of the life-saving 
service. 



CHAPTER X 

WHALERS OF THE AECTIO SEA 

In the streets and hotels, or more often the 
smoking-room of the custom-house of the 
beautiful old town of New Bedford, Mas- 
sachusetts, one meets in these latter times 
certain quiet, elderly men who, save for their 
weather-beaten faces, an occasional scar, the 
deference shown them, and the title of ' ' cap- 
tain, ' ' give no sign of the stormy and adven- 
turous lives they have led. These men be- 
long to a most interesting class, and one 
which promises to soon become extinct. They 
are the whaling captains of the old days, when, 
with whaling still one of the most prosperous 
and important of our national industries, the 
New Bedford whalers carried the American 
flag to the most distant parts of the globe, and 

254 



WHALERS OF THE ARCTIC SEA 255 

yearly poured a golden stream into the 
strong-boxes of their shrewd and venture- 
some owners. Cabin-boys at twelve, captains 
before they were twenty-five, at fifty, 
stranded hulks — having often made and lost 
great fortunes, made them for others, lost 
them for themselves — in such quiet havens as 
chance or fortune affords, they now peace- 
fully and with perfect contentment await the 
end that sooner or later comes to us all. 

For more than a century, New Bedford has 
been the centre in this country of the indus- 
try of which these old captains are pathetic 
reminders; but in recent years it has made 
San Francisco the headquarters of its ships. 
They all carry the name of New Bedford 
on their sterns, and are owned and com- 
manded by New Bedford men; but, as whal- 
ing is now mainly carried on in Alaskan 
waters, San Francisco has become the princi- 
pal point of arrival and departure. Only the 
Atlantic whalers, dwindled now to less than 
a dozen, still headquarter in the old capital 
of the trade. The ships engaged in the whale 



256 THE SEA ROVERS 

trade are clumsy in appearance, and nmch 
smaller than most people wonld imagine, be- 
ing rarely as large as the three-masted 
schooners used in the coasting trade. They 
are strongly built, wide amidships, and as 
broad as Dutch galleons at the bow. They 
are so treated with pitch and tar as to last 
for generations, and are constantly repaired, 
a part at a time. Some of the stanchest ves- 
sels in the trade are more than half a century 
old, and promise to do duty for many years 
to come. 

The fleet sailing from San Francisco num- 
bers between forty and fifty vessels. Some 
of the captains sail in November, and spend 
the winter in sperm whaling, putting into 
Honolulu for fresh supplies at the approach 
of spring, but the majority leave in March. 
The whales are fast being driven from the 
Pacific, and every year the whalers are forced 
to go farther and farther north for them. 
Only a few years ago, whales were plentiful 
in the Northern Pacific and Behring and 
Okhotsk Seas, but now the whalers have to 



WHALERS OF THE ARCTIC SEA 257 

push far into the Arctic to find their game. To 
make a voyage profitable, a ship must often 
spend several seasons in the north, and last 
year the San Francisco fleet sailed prepared 
for a three years' cruise. Many of the cap- 
tains took their wives and children with them. 
They reached Herschel Island late in August, 
spending last winter as they will the next two, 
in comfortable quarters at Pauline Cove, re- 
turning to the United States in the fall of 
1909. Pianos and pool and billiard tables 
were taken along to help while away the long 
winters, and the members of the fleet, when 
they return, are sure to have many an inter- 
esting and stirring story to tell. 

In order to complete the preparations for 
its Arctic work, each whaler, after leaving 
San Francisco, cruises for a few weeks in the 
central Pacific. During this cruise the crow's 
nest, or lookout, is put in place, the boats are 
scrubbed, painted and fitted with sails, steer- 
ing-gear and oars and the whaling apparatus 
thoroughly overhauled. Then the ship's rig- 
ging receives careful attention, weak spots be- 



258 THE SEA ROVERS 

ing made strong, and old sails patched or re- 
placed, and finally, the hold is restowed and 
put in shape for the long voyage. The crew 
of a whaler includes, besides the captain, four 
mates, one boat-leader, four boat-steerers, a 
steward, cook, carpenter, cooper, steerage and 
cabin boys, and from twelve to twenty able 
seamen. The men instead of being paid reg- 
ular wages, receive a portion of the profits of 
the cruise. The captain receives a twelfth, 
the first mate a twentieth, the second mate and 
boat-leader each a twenty-fifth, the third mate 
a thirtieth, the carpenter, cooper and steward 
each a fiftieth, and the sailors each a hundred 
and seventy-fifth. The captain's portion 
ranges from nothing to $7,000 or $8,000, ac- 
cording to the number of whales taken dur- 
ing a cruise. If a ship secures twelve whales 
during a cruise, the captain will receive about 
$3,000 and a sailor $200. The sailors usually 
receive an advance of $60 each, and during 
a cruise are allowed to draw tobacco, clothing 
and the like, from the ship's supplies, to the 
amount of $60 or $80. Both officers and men 



WHALERS OF THE ARCTIC SEA 259 

keenly appreciate this co-operative system, 
and toil with great zeal in the hope of extra 
reward. Formerly whales were valued chiefly 
for the oil, but the discovery of petroleum 
worked a change, and the whalebone is now 
the main thing sought. This product is worth 
from $4 to $5 a pound, and the average whale 
contains a little less than a ton of bone. 

The officers of an Arctic whaler are gener- 
ally Yankees, but all countries are repre- 
sented in the forecastle. Americans, Britons, 
Swedes, Portuguese, Germans, Spaniards, 
Kanakas, a few stray cowboys, and three or 
four 'Frisco hoodlums are often found in the 
same crew. Now and then desperate crimi- 
nals seek an Arctic cruise to escape punish- 
ment for their misdeeds, and sometimes in- 
duce a crew to mutiny. Such an experience 
befell Captain Edmund Kelly, now living in 
retirement in New Bedford, when he was mas- 
ter of the Lucretia. His crew, prompted by 
three ruffians, who had crept in among them, 
refused duty soon after the ship entered Beh- 
ring Sea, and retreated to the forecastle, but 



260 THE SEA BOVEKS 

not before the captain had emptied it of such 
food as it contained. When asked to state 
their grievances they demanded the release of 
one of their shipmates who had been put in 
irons for disobedience. This demand Kelly 
refused to grant, and locked them in the fore- 
castle, determined, if possible, to starve them 
into submission. 

On the third morning the crew, who were all 
armed with knives and revolvers, broke out of 
this improvised prison and demanded " bread 
or blood. " The captain appealed to them to 
return to duty, but the three ring-leaders 
threatened to shoot the first man who wav- 
ered, and none responded. It was a critical 
moment, but Kelly, sprung from a race of 
fighting men, proved equal to it. Picking up 
a rifle, he walked in among the mutineers, and 
singling out the leader, ordered him to sur- 
render. The man refused, and the captain 
raised his rifle to his shoulder, but before he 
could fire, the mutineer snapped a revolver 
twice in his face, and then took refuge among 
his companions. Kelly tried to follow him, 



WHALERS OF THE ARCTIC SEA 261 

but his progress was impeded by the crew, 
and the rascal he was seeking now stole up 
behind him, took careful aim, and fired. The 
officers, who were standing aft in a group, 
thinking their captain had been killed, fired 
upon the mutineer, wounding him in the leg. 
Happily, however, Kelly had only received a 
slight scalp wound. He regained his feet in 
an instant, and facing the mutineer, who was 
now crawling towards him with cocked revol- 
ver in hand, took aim and fired, whereat the 
man fell back dead with a bullet in his heart. 
The others, begging for mercy, threw down 
their arms, and the mutiny was at an end. 
During the rest of the voyage they proved a 
most obedient and tractable crew. When 
Captain Kelly returned to San Francisco, he 
reported the affair to the federal courts. The 
judge who heard the evidence discharged him, 
and at the same time reproved him for failing 
to shoot the other leaders of the mutiny. 

When all is in readiness for the Arctic 
cruise, the captain of a whaler changes the 
southwesterly course he has followed since 



262 THE SEA KOVERS 

leaving port, and heads for the north. The 
passage through Behring Sea, on account of 
the great fields of floating ice which fill that 
body at all seasons, is always a trying and 
often a dangerous one, and the whaling mas- 
ters must of necessity be most skilful navi- 
gators. Pushing a ship in safety from lead 
to lead, and among the threatening cakes of 
an ice-floe, calls for the most consummate 
skill, and it is a lesson mastered by sailors 
only after a long and hard experience. In 
addition to the highest skill, the captain — or 
disaster surely awaits him — must possess a 
resolute will that falters not, even in the face 
of death. For weeks his ship is seldom out 
of peril, and he must be ready at all times 
to make his escape from a threatening pack 
or an approaching floe. 

Some years ago, the ship Hunter, Cap- 
tain Cogan, when off St. Lawrence Island, 
was caught in a whirlpool and seriously dis- 
abled. He patched up his ship as best he 
could and made a fresh start. Off Icy Cape, 
bottom ice was struck, causing a serious leak, 



L WHALERS OF THE ARCTIC SEA 263 

and the captain was forced to seek refuge in 
the nearest haven. Here every movable ob- 
ject was taken out of the ship and carried 
on shore. Then the spars were unshipped 
and converted into a raft, which was anchored 
at both ends and steadied with water casks. 
Using the raft as a wharf, and in the face of 
a blinding storm, the ship was hove down, the 
keel raised above the surface of the water, 
and the leak repaired. Captain Cogan's 
cruise up to that time had been a fruitless one, 
but three months later he sailed safely into 
port with a valuable cargo. Similar experi- 
ences befall the whalers every year. 

During the long and toilsome passage 
through Behring Sea, a sharp lookout is kept 
for whales, but few are now caught south of 
Cape Navarin, and whaling does not com- 
mence in earnest until the ships are well out 
into the Arctic. Each ship has five whale- 
boats, and when the lookout in the crow's nest 
reports a whale in sight, the crews spring into 
them and are off in an instant. The captain, 
however, remains on the ship, and from the 



264 THE SEA ROVERS 

crow's nest directs the boats by a code of 
signals. 

The boats always approach their prey un- 
der sail, as the use of paddle or oar would 
startle the whale and cause it to beat a hasty 
retreat. The old method of whaling with 
harpoons and lances thrown by hand has been 
superseded during the last twenty years by 
the whale-gun, and as a consequence what was 
once a royal sport has now sadly degenerated. 
The new weapon is a heavy metallic shoulder- 
gun fastened to a pole about six feet long. As 
the boat nears its intended victim, a harpoon 
attached to several hundred fathoms of line is 
shot from the gun, and having been "inade 
fast," a bomb, filled with an explosive equal 
to about ten pounds of giant powder, is fired 
into the huge body near the head. The mis- 
sile, exploding as it buries itself in the flesh, 
blows a great hole almost in the vitals of the 
monster, and death quickly follows. When 
the bomb fails to cause instant death or in- 
flict a mortal wound, a second harpoon with 
a dynamite attachment is thrown, the needle 



WHALERS OF THE ARCTIC SEA 265 

point of the spear r as it sinks into the flesh, 
exploding the bomb. The second wonnd 
nearly always causes instant death; but if 
not, the harpoons cling to the whale, and with 
lines attached, the whalers quietly await the 
reappearance of the whale — which seeks re- 
lief by plunging beneath the surface — for an- 
other shot at it from the gun, which has in 
the meantime been reloaded. There is small 
chance for escape, and another bomb or har- 
poon from the gun speedily ends the most 
desperate struggle for life. The sperm whale, 
the favorite game of the old-time whalers, 
always puts up a stout battle, but the bow- 
head whale, found in polar waters, is timid, 
and dies meekly. 

When the whale, its struggles ended, rolls 
over dead, the vessel gets up sail and makes 
its way to the body, taking it on the star- 
board side, in front of the gangway. A stage 
is rigged over the side and just above the 
floating carcass, which is secured fore and 
aft by chains. Then the process of taking 
the bone and blubber from the body com- 



266 THE SEA ROVERS 

mences. First a cut is made through the 
deep layer of fat beginning at the nose, and, if 
all the blubber is to be taken off, running back 
to the flukes or tail. Next cross-incisions are 
made every four or five feet, and strips of the 
fat encircling the whale are marked out. After 
this, tackle is attached to one end of these 
strips, and men on the stage sever the strip 
of blubber from the body, as it is then being 
hoisted on board. Each strip, as it is taken 
off, rolls the whale around in the water. 

The most difficult part of the operation 
I am describing is cutting off the head, which 
contains all the whalebone. A single false 
move may destroy hundreds of dollars' worth 
of bone, or perhaps entail the loss of the en- 
tire head. Axes are used, and it takes a great 
deal of hard and skilful chopping to pierce the 
mountain of flesh. When the backbone has 
been chopped nearly through, a jerk of the 
tackle breaks the remainder, and the head is 
then hauled on deck. As a large whale's 
head frequently contains several thousand 
dollars worth of bone, the suspense and anxi- 



WHALERS OF THE ARCTIC SEA 267 

ety of the whaler while it is being taken off 
can be readily understood. When the head 
has been secured, the work of taking off the 
remainder of the blubber is resumed. Some 
vessels save only the bone, and cast the body 
adrift after the head has been cut off, but 
these are usually ships without the needed 
apparatus for trying out the oil. When the 
blubber has all been stripped from the car- 
cass, it is cut up into small pieces, and for 
several days thereafter the crew is briskly 
employed " trying out" the oil and stowing 
it away in casks. A large cube of bricks amid- 
ships contains two great iron kettles with 
fireplaces beneath, and in these the oil is 
boiled from the blubber. Black smoke and 
foul smell attend this operation, and only an 
old whaler will go to the leeward of the great 
pots when it is in progress. 

There is little to break the monotony of the 
whaler's life while at work. Day after day 
the same routine is repeated, broken only by 
an occasional storm, or visits in leisure hours 
to neighboring vessels. But about the whaler 



268 THE SEA EOVEES 

there is always the glamor of the Arctic, 
which those who have once felt its spell say 
can never be forgotten — by day its marvel- 
lous mirages, weirdly reflecting distant ships, 
or the ice piled in huge, fantastic masses ; at 
night the sombre glory of the aurora borealis, 
and always the cold, serene purity of ice and 
water and sky. When winter approaches, if 
one or more ships are to spend a second sea- 
son in polar waters, quarters are built in some 
sheltered spot on land, and there, early in Oc- 
tober, all the vessels rendezvous. On each 
ship the space between-decks is cleared, 
stoves set up, and bunks arranged along the 
middle, away from the sides, so that the cold 
will not so quickly reach the men through the 
vessel 's timbers. When the ice forms around 
the ship, high banks of snow are piled about 
it to break the force of the piercing winds, and 
snow is also piled upon the roof built over the 
decks. This snow soon freezes and will not 
drift with the fiercest of gales. Thus pre- 
pared for, a winter in the Arctic has lost 
many of its former terrors. 



WHALEES OF THE AECTIC SEA 269 

The whaler's homeward passage through 
Behring Sea is often more difficult and dan- 
gerous than the outward voyage. With sud- 
den gales, treachjerous currents, blinding 
snowstorms, and long, dark nights, each mas- 
ter must literally feel his way with the lead, 
getting such aid as he can from log and look- 
out. Every captain breathes a sigh of relief 
when he has passed the Straits and is once 
more in the Pacific, southward bound. There 
is plenty of work on the return passage. The 
crow's nest must be taken down and stowed 
away for another cruise; the masts scraped 
and varnished; the ship scoured and cleaned 
above and below ; and finally, if it is a steam 
vessel, the sails unbent and stowed away. Just 
before entering port, the crew discard their 
skin clothing. A few hours later the voyage 
is at an end, and the men are tasting, perhaps 
for the first time in years, the delights and 
comforts of life on shore, and spending with 
open hand the money they have worked so 
long and so hard to earn. 

Whaling in the Arctic saw its best days in 



270 THE SEA BOVERS 

1852, when the fleet numbered 250 vessels and 
the value of the catch exceeded $14,000,000. 
Its gradual decline began a little later, but it 
received its first serious set-back in June, 
1865, when the Confederate cruiser Shenan- 
doah, making its way without warning into 
the Arctic, burned thirty and captured four 
other whalers. New Bedford's loss alone 
was twenty- three vessels, which, with their 
outfits, were valued at more than a million 
dollars. Since then, wind and ice, the ever- 
present perils of the whaler, have caused two 
appalling disasters, and further hastened the 
decline of the trade. The first of these dis- 
asters occurred in 1871. Between August 11th 
and 29th of that year, the ice closed in upon 
the whaling fleet at work near Wainright In- 
let, and at the end of the month thirty-three 
vessels were helpless prisoners. During the 
next week three vessels were crushed or car- 
ried off by the ice, the crew in each instance 
narrowly escaping with their lives. Each 
day the ice packed closer and it became ap- 
parent to the captains, who held daily meet- 



WHALEBS OF THE AECTIC SEA 271 

ings to discuss the situation, that for their 
ships at least, escape was hopeless. There 
was not the time nor material to build winter 
quarters on land, and even had this been pos- 
sible, the scanty stock of provisions could 
only postpone certain starvation, or death by 
scurvy and disease, during the eleven months 
that must elapse before they could hope for 
relief to reach them from the outer world. 
And so it became clear that the crews 
must be got away before winter came or all 
would perish. 

Captain David Frazer, who, with two 
whaleboats, had been sent to the south to see 
what could be done, returned on September 
12th and reported that he had found the rest 
of the fleet, seven ships, off Icy Cape, ninety 
miles to the south. They were also, he said, 
fast in the ice, but would be able to work their 
way out and would lie by to aid their dis- 
tressed companions. On the receipt of this 
news, the captains, some of whom were ac- 
companied by their wives and children, met to 
decide upon a final course of action. Three 



272 THE SEA BOVEES 

million dollars' worth of property and 1,200 
lives were at stake, and to save the latter all 
else must be sacrificed. It was then resolved, 
unless the weather moderated, to abandon the 
fleet next day. Morning brought no change 
and the most daring were convinced that 
nothing but flight remained. The 200 whale- 
boats of the fleet were manned by their crews 
and the southward journey begun. There was 
a narrow strip of water between the ice and 
shore, and through this the sad procession 
made its way. 

At night a camp was made on shore, and on 
the second day the boats reached Blossom 
Shoals, and came in sight of the refuge ves- 
sels. They were lying &ve miles out from 
shore and behind a tongue of ice which 
stretched ten miles farther down the coast. 
Around this obstruction the crews were 
forced to make their way before they could 
get on board. On the outer side of this icy 
peninsula a fearful gale was encountered and 
the boats were tossed about like corks; but 
four in the afternoon all dangers were 



WHALEKS OF THE AECTIC SEA 273 

safely passed and the 1,200 refugees distrib- 
uted among the several vessels of the fleet. 
Sail was made at once, and on October 24th 
the first of the ships reached Honolulu, the 
others following speedily. Of the splendid 
fleet of forty vessels that had sailed north- 
ward less than a year before, only these seven 
returned; but not a life was lost. When in 
the following year some of the captains vis- 
ited the locality where the ships were lost, 
they found that with one or two exceptions 
they had all been carried away by the ice, 
ground to pieces, or burned by the people of a 
near-by Eskimo village. The value of the 
wrecked vessels sailing from New Bedford 
exceeded, with their cargoes, a million dollars. 
Some of the city's wealthiest whaling-masters 
were ruined and many more badly crippled by 
the disaster. 

Compared with the disaster of 1871, that 
of 1876 was much less destructive to property, 
but vastly more appalling by reason of the 
great loss of life with which it was attended. 
The whaling fleet reached Point Barrow early 



274 THE SEA EOVEES 

in August, 1876, and began whaling. Strong 
currents and constantly moving ice made 
work difficult from the first, and in the end 
the pack suddenly closed in upon the fleet. 
Four vessels made their escape, but the rest 
were carried slowly away towards the north- 
ward, great jams at the same time choking up 
every avenue leading to the south. With cold 
weather fast approaching, it was plainly im- 
possible to release the ships from their icy 
prison. A majority of the masters resolved 
to take to the boats as the only chance for 
escape, but five of the captains, with their 
crews, hoping against hope, refused to leave 
their ships. Progress over the ice was slow 
and painful. With infinite labor the boats 
would be hauled for a mile or so over the ice 
and then the men would return for the pro- 
visions and clothing they had taken from the 
ships. At night they crawled under the up- 
turned boats and slept as best they could on 
the ice. Late in the evening of the third day 
land was reached, and after resting and dry- 
ing their clothes the captains decided to push 



WHALERS OF THE ARCTIC SEA 275 

on at once to the ships lying below Point 
Barrow. 

At the end of a week, exhausted, half -frozen 
and starving, they reached this refuge, and 
were kindly received by their fellow captains. 
The men were divided among the several 
ships, and as soon as the wind opened the ice 
the return voyage began. When the Golden 
Gate was reached, the last piece of meat was 
in the copper and the last loaf of bread in 
the oven. Out of a fleet of twenty vessels, 
twelve had been sunk or abandoned, with a 
loss of over $800,000. On the southward 
journey over the ice, two of the captains be- 
thought them of some valuable furs they had 
left behind, and decided to return for them. 
They made the trip in safety and had a warm 
welcome from those who had remained on the 
ships, but the latter turned a deaf ear to their 
earnest appeals to return with them, and 
the two captains again pushed southward 
alone. Since that hour nothing has been 
seen or heard of the ships or of the 150 men 
who refused to leave them. In the silence 



276 THE SEA EOVERS 

and darkness of the long Arctic winter they 
perished and gave no sign. How passed their 
final hoars? A grisly and gruesome story 
which all whalers tell offers a partial answer 
to this question. Many years ago Captain 
Warrens, of the whaler Greenland, while ly- 
ing becalmed among icebergs, sighted a dis- 
mantled and apparently deserted vessel. The 
boat's crew sent off to the stranger found 
the deck deserted; but seated at a table in 
the cabin was the corpse of a man covered 
with green, damp "mould. A pen was still 
clutched in the stiffened hand, and on the 
table lay a log-book containing this last 
entry : 

"We have now been enclosed in the ice 
seventeen days. The fire went out yesterday 
and our master has been trying ever since to 
kindle it again, without success. His wife 
died this morning. There is no relief.' ' 

The corpse of another man was found on 
the floor, and in one of the cabin berths lay 
the dead body of a woman. The corpse of 
the cabin-boy crouched at the foot of the 



WHALERS OF THE ARCTIC SEA 277 

gangway. Scattered about the forecastle lay 
the dead bodies of the crew. The ship was 
barren of fuel or food. It had been frozen 
in the ice thirteen years. Perhaps in similar 
manner this later Arctic mystery may yet find 
startling solution. 

There have been few whalers lost during 
the last twenty years. This has been due to 
the gradual introduction, since 1880, of steam- 
whalers, which act as tugs to the sailing ships 
when in danger, and to the constant presence 
in the Arctic of one or more revenue cutters, 
which render efficient aid every season, and 
convey to San Francisco the crews of such 
vessels as are lost — the Corwin on one of its 
cruises saving an entire fleet from destruc- 
tion. With these extra safeguards, the trade 
would doubtless have speedily recovered from 
the disasters I have described, but for the 
gradual disappearance of the whale itself. 
Each year, the whales, to escape pursuit, push 
still farther into the polar ice-caps, and each 
year the number caught decreases. The an- 
nual product of bone and oil has now fallen 



278 THE SEA EOVEES 

to less than a million and a half of dollars, 
and new whaling gronnds mnst soon be f onnd 
or a great industry abandoned. Already the 
British whalers are turning their attention to 
the south polar region. Should whales prove 
plentiful there, the Yankees will be sure to 
follow in the footsteps of the English, and 
the energy and capital long expended in the 
far north will be diverted, for a term of years 
at least, to the other end of the world. 

THE END 



A NOBLE COMPANY 

OF 

ADVENTURERS 

BY RUFUS ROCKWELL WILSON 

UNDER THE ABOVE TITLE IS BEING 
PREPARED A COMPANION VOLUME TO 
"THE SEA ROVERS." THE OPENING 
CHAPTER HAS TO DO WITH THE AN- 
CIENT AND PICTURESQUE HUDSON BAY 
FUR COMPANY, AND OTHER ROMANTIC 
AND PERILOUS PURSUITS DEALT WITH 
IN SUBSEQUENT CHAPTERS ARE THOSE 
OF THE GOLD HUNTER, THE COWBOY, 
THE OILMAN, THE LUMBERMAN, THE 
MAKER OF STEEL, THE COAL MINER, 
THE RAILROAD BUILDER, THE CANA- 
DIAN MOUNTED POLICE, AND THE TEXAS 
RANGER. THE NEW VOLUME PROM- 
ISES, LIKE ITS COMPANION, TO GIVE 
DELIGHT TO BOYS OF ALL AGES. IT 
WILL BE ISSUED IN THE FALL OF 1907, BY 

B. W. DODGE & CO. 



Df£24 \m 



IBi| , |5RiJi5L OF CONGRESS 



029 708 064 7 



